Students travel to East Coast in Sandy’s wake
Members of the Utah Conservation Corps working in the USU AmeriCorps program were sent to New York two weeks ago to help disaster recovery efforts in the area.
Tim Carroll, the on-site supervisor in New York, said the disaster is unlike anything he’s ever seen.
“Most recently we’ve been in the Rockaway area of New York,” Carroll said. “It was one of the harder hit areas and it was a huge shock to go down to that area for the first time this week and to see the total destruction of some of these homes.”
Carroll said there were around 5,000 homes in that area alone which were either severely damaged or destroyed by the storm.
“Every single house had a flooded basement all the way up to the ceiling and then onto the first floor,” he said. “Homes have been lifted off their foundations and moved two blocks and there’s just debris everywhere.”
Carroll said his group’s current job is to take down and get rid of anything the flood destroyed in order to eventually help the rebuilding process.
“Most of what we’ve been doing is going into people’s homes and in their basements, helping them gut the walls and pull out floorboards,” he said. “Stuff was carried into the streets and between houses.”
Carroll said no one in the group was completely prepared for the amount of damage done and he felt people didn’t know much about the truth of the disaster.
“It’s definitely on par with Katrina,” he said, referring to the hurricane that struck New Orleans in 2005. “And as far as a dollar value amount, I think it’s going to even surpass that.”
Carroll said the destruction was caused partly by the storm and partly by a series of disasters that followed.
“It literally looks like a bomb went off,” he said. “Some of those areas had fires after that and people’s homes just burned to the ground – blocks and blocks of homes, because there’s no way for fire crews to get in there after that happened. It’s just one thing after another.”
Carroll said snow and rain storms have continued to come down across the area, making it difficult for the recovery crews to work.
“It really takes a toll on the volunteers who are down here,” he said. “Every day is just absolutely exhausting.”
Carroll said the volunteers from UCC and AmeriCorps aren’t the only ones helping. Hundreds of people from around the area take time off from work or other obligations to help repair the damage.
Kate Stephens, the assistant director of the USU Student Sustainability Office, said the volunteers led by Carroll are working through the school to be a part of AmeriCorps. She said the volunteers who went only had two weeks of service left in their contract when they were sent to New York but chose to do more.
“It’s 10 Utah Conservation Corps AmeriCorps members, and they have been serving with the UCC since last spring,” Stephens said. “They chose to extend a couple weeks beyond their end date and spend a full month out in New York.”
Stephens said the group’s first two weeks out were dedicated to helping people rather than repairing damages done by the storm.
“They were working out of a YMCA in Brooklyn that was converted into a shelter,” Stephens said. “The residents of that shelter were evacuees from two nursing homes in Queens, so they were doing all different kinds of things but mainly tending to the needs of elderly people who had suddenly become homeless.”
Stephens said the volunteers were tasked with tending to the evacuees and protecting them because many of them were diagnosed with dementia and other mental diseases.
Sean Damitz, the director of the Student Sustainability Office, said the UCC and USU were involved in Hurricane Katrina as well as Sandy. He said UCC volunteers will be sent to anywhere, like New York, that needs help.
Carroll said his experiences in New York have opened his eyes to what people face in difficult times. Carroll said he’d never forget the experience he had in New York or the people who helped him.
“It’s just been so awesome to see people coming down to volunteer and to help out,” Carroll said. “That’s really the most amazing thing about this whole experience is just seeing the selflessness of people who are willing to give up their time and give their energy. That’s what we need right now.”
– addison.m.t.hall@gmail.com