After a tearful reunion and a stern chastising for making us worry, Julija explained how she rode out the storm in her tiny attic with her two dogs and all her belongings gathered in thick black garbage bags as the surge flooded her first floor nearly to the ceiling. The hard wood in the middle of the room was warped and bulging at its center. With the gas shut off and no electricity, she’d been reduced to cooking cans of soup over a fire built in a cinder block, as if she was riding the rails in the 1920s. Thankfully the FEMA distribution center wasn’t terribly far, so we led her up the block to get bottles of water and a box of MREs for her and her boyfriend. Hours later, after the sun had set, we made our way back to the car, which was now blocked in by the growing line for gas and a single drop had yet to be pumped. We pulled away with the only source of light for blocks being the headlights of other cars.

Photo: Courtesy of Ron Hill