Surviving Sandy

Survivor stories and lessons in the path of Sandy. We’ll listen.

One week ago, it was a big patch of red on the TV weather maps, way down in the Caribbean.  A hurricane called Sandy.  That got bigger and bigger and bigger.  And slammed the East coast with historic scale.

Mile after mile of storied ocean front, a tangled wreck.  Subways, tunnels, drowned in Manhattan.  Wall Street, washed out.  New Yorkers stranded in dark sky scrapers.  Epic gas lines.  Epic bus lines.  Climate questions and a terrible sense of fragility.  That we can’t handle this too often.

This hour, On Point: survivor stories and lessons learned from Sandy.
-Tom Ashbrook

Ellis Henican, columnist for Newsday.

Jim Axelrod, national correspondent for CBS News.

Amy Nutt, staff writer for the New Jersey Star Ledger.

Kate Zernike, reporter for the New York Times.

CBS News "In New York City, a college student went out to take pictures in the borough of Queens and was electrocuted by a downed power line, while across town on Staten Island, an off-duty policeman drowned after moving his family to safety."

Star Ledger "Across the state, long lines of frustrated motorists snaked for blocks leading to the few gas stations open for business, while tempers flared. Millions more found themselves without power — or heat in their homes — for yet another day, with no expectations of getting it back anytime soon."

New York Post "The family has been forced to rely on the kindness of friends, squeezing into the house of Declan and Maria Walsh, their kids Betty, 17, and Seamus, 15, and a snobby Weimaraner named Casper. Along with another roommate, a 15-year-old boy evacuated from Manhattan, the human population of the crowded Walsh residence has climbed to nine. There are even more bodies"