Night of Hurricane Sandy
As Hurricane Sandy made landfall near Atlantic City, NJ, this Monday evening, Atlanta was eerily quiet, blanketed under a waxing gibbous moon. I shivered as I stepped out my front door to create this image. The air was crisp and the temperature, unseasonably cold. Yet, it wasn’t so much the chill of the night that ran through to my bones but the circumstances of this strange day. In our small community of Decatur, we heard the sad news that one of our beloved middle school teachers had passed away suddenly. She was young, vibrant and cherished by the students and faculty. She had taken my son under her wing last year when he was having a difficult time adjusting to our move from Florida. My husband is stranded in Boston after his two flights back home had been cancelled. He had flown up to deliver a talk at Harvard this morning but did not have the opportunity to do so since the university shut down. Lastly, as I am writing this entry in the deceptive calm, as captured out my front door, millions of people up north are fretting about what awaits them in the morning, in the wake of this monstrous storm.
Beate Sass 
AMAZING photograph. Hope Tim made it back safely. Margarita
Beate, I just got to read your blog because I have spent most of the time the past few days with Superstorm Sandy. First I had to check on my remaining cousin in Paoli, PA, Grace is a whole three weeks younger than I am and has lived in her house for about 60 years. She was as prepared as she could get and the neighbors on either side will watch out for her. I’m pretty sure she will be without power even if all else is well. Paoli is a small town on the main line to the State Capitl and the area is peppered with Revolutionary bits and pieces.
I’ve spent most of today trying to locate a report on the damage to Harvey Cedars on Long Beach Island, one of the barrier islands south of the better known Atlantic City in N.J. The ocean is on one side and Barnegat Bay is on the other with about two blocks from coast to coast. My husbands parents had a summer home on that island on the bay. It was the old yacht club. This modest brown wood building was finally outgrown and the Smiths bought it. Mother Smith (Isabel Lucas) had been goinng to Harvey Cedars about all her life because it was the only way her mother could get relief from asthma. So Isabel had been going to “the Shore” from Trenton since about 1890. The sturdy house lasted through two hurricanes that I know about. After the first one they decided to raise the house and it survived another Nor’easter after we moved to Atlanta. Much credit for its survival is given to an ancient very dense hedge that has been there for a century.
I have a book of photos of the area if you are interested in seeing it.