More tears for our tri-state area...

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

I can only put up my own pictures, I cannot bring myself to put up images of the increased devastation. The number of people without electricity has increased again, people are still without heat, and the dropping temperatures are sapping our strong bull-headed New Yorkers and New Jerseyites determination to persevere and roll up their sleeves, rolling up your sleeves makes you cold, and the mountains of donated down jackets are hard to dispense and there are all these elderly people who can't make it down all the stairs in the projects near the shore and so food must be carried by volunteers up 4, 6, 8, 10 floors while wearing headlamps in dark stairwells. We were going to volunteer driving around to the homebound this weekend but this is a gas shortage, and with a toddler we can't afford to get stranded with only crowded bus service to slowly get us back home, in the snow.

Devastation draped in pretty snow.

But one happy note.

I posted last Friday about one more devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy that broke me just when I was climbing up out of the sorrow of the week, when I learned that the NY Aquarium was in severe danger. Perhaps stupid to care so much about it, but obviously other people care greatly too, as the NY Times has given a big, joyous update on it.

The facility, and nearly all the creatures, have survived! A miracle considering raucous ocean water poured into the aquarium, lapping even into the tanks. But everyone is doing well, except for a pool of freshwater koi who simply could not be saved.

I will quote just the end of the article:

Mr. Dohlin speculated that even though the floodwaters had poured into the top of the tanks, the cold ocean water must have sat on top of the tank water, “striated,” as it were. The fish were happy to remain in their own half. With one exception: A staff member found a three-foot-long American eel alive in three inches of water at the bottom of a staff shower stall, after the basement was pumped out.

“It was such an affirmation that maybe miracles do happen,” Mr. Dohlin said. “We immediately named him Lazarus.”