Staten Island residents desperate for Marines’ help

Staten Island residents desperate for Marines’ help
NOVEMBER 5TH, 2012
BATTLE RATTLE
POSTED BY GINA HARKINS

NEW YORK – Mounds of garbage and debris are piled along the streets in Staten Island, pick-up being just one of the many services residents haven’t had access to in Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath.

Evidence of people living normal lives just a week ago now line the curbsides of the New York borough devastated by last week’s superstorm. Appliances, furniture, children’s toys and other everyday items are just dumped at the edge of the streets, since residents ran out of garbage bags to pack them into days ago.

The smell of rotting trash lingers in the air. Power lines hang down onto sidewalks.

Cars swept away by the floods sit in unnatural places like the middle of fields or on top of rocks. Slippery, thick, brown mud cakes driveways and basements, brought in by the waves and storm surge that flooded the residential neighborhood so fast that that people barely had a chance to get to safe places. Some, unfortunately, never did.

But still, when you walk through the streets of Staten Island, what you see isn’t outward anger or sorrow. People are just getting to work, cleaning out their homes and helping each other. Residents from nearby communities drove or walked the streets, offering hot food, water and clothing to those left with next to nothing.
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Our chance to help
US Marines proudly on the job
New York Post
By GREGORY HUNT
November 6, 2012

Normally, I get fuel pumped into military vehicles; now I’m pumping water out of houses and apartment buildings in the Rockaways.

I’m a lance corporal in the United States Marine Corps, a bulk-fuel specialist with the 8th Engineer Support Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics group based out of Camp Lejeune, NC. We’re here to help, for as long as we’re needed.

Ten days ago, as we watched the path Hurricane Sandy was supposed to take, my heart sunk. I was born and raised in Bloomfield, NJ; I knew the storm was going to be bad — but nobody knew how bad.

For the following week, I’d watch the news each night and see the devastation and destruction of places where I had many childhood memories. So when I was given word that within 24 hours I’d be going home to help, there were no words to explain how happy I was.

I just got back in September from Afghanistan, my first deployment, where my job was to supply fuel to the convoys that patrolled the area of operation. I was hoping to get put right on my next deployment — but I never thought that it would be to New York, the city I visited so often with my dad as a kid.
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