Oh Sandy

 Coney Island Monday and Tuesday.

 Power outage Monday night. Power is supposed to be out until Friday from 34th street down. This happened when a power station on 14th street (right by the Highline and the Hudson river) exploded Monday night.

Tuesday morning view of lower Manhattan still without power.  (A before and after shot)

Wednesday morning there is still intense flooding in the subway system. Those are escalators that lead you a story or two down into the subway. One gross fact for ya, the rats got pushed up out of the subway system. We all hoped they would drown, but they are apparently excellent swimmers and are now on higher ground carrying all sorts of diseases. Disgusting.

Below is the Bowling Green subway station. You know, the one right by the big bronze bull? 

To add to the destruction a fire broke out in Queens. My heart goes out to these families who lost so much. 

This is a glimpse at what happened on Station Island. 

(None of these images were taken by me. Though we have been to all of these places before the storm. These were taken from various news websites.)

Thursday morning Zach and I took the trains that were partially running downtown to work. As I got off at the last stop, 34th street, I started the walk. Two avenues over and 17 blocks down. When I finally go to my office on 17th street I stepped inside and realized how dark it was. There was obviously no power, and no way I would be hanging out alone in that building by myself. I have been working remotely until they can get the power back up in lower Manhattan.

May you all be having a safe and blessed Friday.

Sister Bennett

My sister Kimberly received her mission call on Halloween. She will report to the MTC February 6th. I am so proud of her for making this decision. She will be amazing.

Watch the video to see where she will be going and what language she will be speaking! 

 Happy Friday everyone!

Sandy Up Here in Inwood

On our Monday morning walk to the mail box all we saw of the impending storm was a puddle and a fallen tree. 

Tuesday we walked around the Inwood/Washington Heights area to explore and see what Sandy did to us. Thankfully no flooding, but lots of fallen trees.

We hear that the Subways may be closed for another week to get everything cleaned up and able to run again. We are waiting to hear about buses, to see if we can go back to work today or tomorrow. 

Happy Halloween everyone!

Hurricane Sandy

Sunday night they shut down the trains at 7pm and the buses at 9pm. 

Stations were closed down Sunday night leaving all these huge stations empty. Under the subways they started putting up wood flood gates and sandbags to prevent as much flooding and damage as possible.  Below is Grand Central Terminal.

This is the New York Stock Exchange building on Wall St. in the financial district located at the south eastern corner of the island.  This was obviously taken before it got too bad.

This is right next to IKEA. We saw this building on Saturday and it was lined with cars and well above sea level. Not any more. This was from Monday evening in Brooklyn. 

This is Battery Park on Monday.  This is one of our favorite areas located on the south western corner of the island. Pictures showed Coney Island looking like this too but with more damage from wooden gates and docks being destroyed.

We stayed safe inside watching scary movies and enjoying the power we still had. The wind picked up pretty good on Monday evening but besides some misting and a few spurts of rain, we have been pretty dry up here.

We tried to eat as much of our ice cream as we could in case we lost it to a dead fridge. I know, it's a tough week. Tuesday afternoon showed less fierce wind and just a light rain every now and again. Trains are still closed until further notice so Zach is working from home and I am still trying to get a hold of my boss who most likely was out on Long Island all weekend.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

(Pictures of the city taken from Weather.com) 

Taxi Boat View

On Saturday we headed out to the IKEA in Brooklyn to make an exchange and pick up a few more items. To get there you can either take a bus ride or a water taxi. Obviously the water taxi is way cooler and quite a bit faster. This was the view on Saturday before Sandy started rolling in. 

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Parks and Brunch

After a lovely tour around Columbia and the cathedral we took a walk in Riverside Park while we waited for our lunch reservation.

Instead of eating lunch we had breakfast, so that's kind of like brunch, right? We had so much fun hanging out with Lexi all afternoon. It is the best, having family we enjoy being around so close.

Happy Monday everyone!

Cathedral of St. John the Divine Part II

I was a little confused why there were airplanes in a church, until Zach made the comment that it was for 9/11. Then it made a little more sense, and became that much more beautiful.

Below that statue was some of the mangled rubble from the trade towers.

I could not get over how huge this place was. It was grand and so open and all the details made it truly breath taking. Thanks for showing us around Lexi! 

Happy Friday everyone!