Three families who survived Hurricane Sandy

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” took on a whole new meaning epic storm Sandy roared into town on Oct. 29 last year — her wrath and “Don’t mess with me” fury sparking fear in the hearts of otherwise brave New Yorkers.

Many were bystanders and watched with utter disbelief images of homeless victims struggling to carry on, despite their horrible circumstances — thousands of them in our very own backyards. Parents across the city wondered how to protect and provide for their families and children — some of them without access to food, heat, transportation, or power. Each survivor has his personal story to tell.

As they still struggle getting their lives back on track, three families from New York City share their firsthand accounts with NY Parenting readers.

Moore family

Many New Yorkers seem to forget that Manhattan is surrounded by water.

When the storm hit, the normally placid Hudson turned strangely dark and menacing, with high ocean-like waves. Nobody could have imagined that the river would breach its banks and overflow into Battery Park and beyond — flooding streets, buildings, and the tunnel — like something out of a doomsday scenario.

Battery Park City resident Ron Moore and his family lived in one of those posh riverfront buildings. The vibrant community and scenic views drew them to this area a couple of years ago, until a raging river and flood waters forced them to evacuate after the storm.

“When the water came into our lobby, I knew it was time to pack up the SUV and get the heck out of Dodge,” recalled the father of three. “Suddenly, nothing mattered — only that my family was safe and warm, and out of harm’s way.”

Luckily, they had a place to go — their home in Connecticut. But once there, they were shocked to discover they’d have to make do with a similar situation. After a month or so they returned to their city dwelling, but never felt safe there again. Now they’re back in Connecticut for good.

Brookins family

Rockaway Beach is home to the city’s only legal surfing. Sandy ravaged the area, destroying its boardwalk and covering its streets with sand.

Film director and surfer Thomas Brookins, 41, was fighting another battle — the scariest one of his life — as the storm hit his community.

“We had just purchased our home in July, at the same time I was in an ongoing battle with cancer, so moving in was very hard. We had a 1-year-old son,” he recalled.

In his condition everything was a chore, and between his film work, raising the child, and working on the new house, life was tedious and exhausting for him and his wife Jess.

When he and his wife bought the house, Thomas said they were assured their block would never flood — neighbors told them they never had any problems. So, the couple turned down flood insurance, opting instead to invest their money in renovations.

Little did they know that the ocean they loved so much would suddenly turn on them, fueled by an angry superstorm — and that they’d lose everything.

“I saw water rushing in from the Bay and we decided, for [my son] Takoda’s safety, to leave and go live in Brooklyn,” Thomas recalled. So, they stayed in a tiny apartment with a friend, his wife, two babies, and two dogs.

Thomas said a guest had been staying with them in their Rockaway Beach house, and decided to remain in the home, since he had work in the morning.

“A few hours later, we got texts from him saying the street was rushing like rapids over the tops of cars. He heard a noise downstairs in the extra bedroom and my office and editing bay. He observed what he called, ocean waves spewing out of the floor and hitting the ceiling. From there the basement flooded in three minutes to the top of the stairs. As it reached the front door, he texted, ‘I just saw what looked like someone’s house float down the street; your basement so far is a total loss.’ ”

Thomas and his wife were horrified. He recalled rushing home the next morning to find something from a movie scene.

“I walked through debris and filth to the house, ran inside and stood at the top of the cold dark staircase looking at swirling water about head high, as everything was banging around. It finally went down to about a foot high that night. I stayed overnight, put on boots, and started shoveling almost three feet of sand out of the basement. Everything we had raised up off the floor was now gone — every memory, every keepsake; my office, gone. The walls were smashed and it smelled like raw sewage. It became an obsession to clean this mess.

“After that, the world slowed to a halt,” Thomas recalled.

There was no heat, and winter was destroying the house almost instantly.

Takoda and Jess stayed in Brooklyn, while for two weeks Thomas shoveled sand and carried belongings out of the house. He said their living room was soiled with dripping filth and boot prints.

Not one organization, including the Red Cross, came to his community’s aid, he says.

“No info ever came from the city, the government, or any media outlets. We kept Googling or using social media to find info on what to do.

“Gas shortages forced me to leave my wife and little guy in Brooklyn, so we could preserve gas. It was harder and harder and getting colder.”

Maybe a month or so later, food and cleaning products from church groups, the Red Cross, and citizens started flowing in, Thomas recalls.

“We had my good friends with the FDNY come and rewire my boiler and heater; we were excited to be warm while working, but it was a race against mold now.”

Then they learned about the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Thomas said the agency came in with six workers, looked at the heating, and told him he couldn’t keep the repaired heater because it was unsafe, since unlicensed work was done on it. So, workers yanked it out and said they’d replace it. It took months.

Thomas and his wife couldn’t stay with their friends any longer, so they headed to a local airport hotel.

“Takoda was sent away to my sister’s house in Maryland; it was so hard to be apart from him, but it was just too cold and unsafe.”

Eventually, with help from friends, neighbors, and folks from all over New York and beyond, Thomas and Jess finally cleaned out everything “to a raw shell.” Finally, clothing was being donated and they had heat, nearly four months later. “It’s passed the one-year anniversary of Sandy and we’re still rebuilding,” said Thomas. “All of my friends and neighbors had the exact same things happen. The neighborhood is still not rebuilt; roads are temporary blobs of black tar, curbs are still chunky, and there’s no sign of the boardwalk in site. I still don’t think people understand how bad it was.”

Looking back, Thomas said he found out how “humbling” Mother Nature’s power really was.

And he and his wife discovered something else: it turned out the traumatic circumstances, coupled with Sandy’s impact, had affected their son, a sweet, bright child. In fact, Thomas said he believes his neighbors’ kids were impacted in similar ways.

Thomas says sometimes his son has nightmares and has some issues in school, since he was so isolated during the last couple of years. He tends to play independently rather than with groups.

“Takoda is now 3; he was a trooper through it all. We’re just now hearing him say things he couldn’t say before like, ‘The big storm came and trashed the street.’ Quite often we hear him playing and using the ‘big scary storm’ as the distress, which his ‘heroes’ have to remedy. His language skills are amazing; with a vocabulary that shocks us daily.”

“He’ll be fine, but we hope he pulls through it all, and the storm fades into a little corner somewhere in his memory,” Thomas adds.

Enz family

As Sandy continued its campaign of destruction — unleashing fierce winds and dislodging homes, shops, cars and boats as if they were toys — a single mom with two boys living in the basement of her parents’ home in Howard Beach was praying that the entire house wouldn’t be totaled.

Flood waters turned Caroline Enz’s backyard into a small lake and entered her apartment, rising to eight feet. She recalls how she and her sons, Justin and Matthew, scrambled to find their valuables and salvage whatever they could.

“On the night Sandy came, my oldest son Justin and I were in our rooms when we heard the water start coming in through the AC unit in his room, and then through the windows. We moved as fast as we could to get as much stuff out of the rooms, before the water would consume the place we once called home.”

They went without heat, hot water, and electricity for more than three weeks.

The day after Sandy, Caroline said it looked like a bomb exploded in the neighborhood.

“There were boats and cars everywhere. People’s homes were gone and their stuff lined up on the street to be thrown away; whole lives gone in one night,” she remembered. “At that time neighbors became family and we all banded together to make sure no one went without a meal, or a warm blanket and coat, clothes and shoes, or just a simple hug to say, ‘Together, we are all gonna get through this!’ There wasn’t one person in my neighborhood that wasn’t affected by this storm. People drowned that night in basement apartments or trapped on rooftops — it was so unreal!”

But they helped each other get through.

Caroline said their lives were really tough that following year.

“Not easy when you’re used to having your own and have to impose, and live with other people.”

They received some money from FEMA, but not much.

“Enough to start to fix but not enough to finish, which makes building back harder,” she said, frustrated. “As for my neighbors, they’re no longer my neighbors — they’re now my family; adopted during a very hard time in all our lives. A family that bonded together.”

She added, “There are some who are still fixing and some that are not even back yet, but each day, more people are back and we get closer to having a normal way of living.”

The family just recently moved back and has to start over, but Caroline says she’s grateful that at least they have their own beds, blankets, and pillows, and aren’t sleeping apart, on other people’s couches.

Local volunteers

The Howard Beach and Breezy Point communities struggled to make it after Sandy’s devastation, and a Middle Village, Queens, songwriter and filmmaker was sitting in front of her TV, like millions of fellow New Yorkers, watching the unbelievable images before her. Lori Martini felt lucky to have heat, power, and a bit of food in her fridge, but she also had an overwhelming sense of guilt: so many people were suddenly homeless, cold, and hungry. Compelled to give back and help those in need, she decided to get out there and take action.

As luck would have it, her friend, Forest Hills resident Frank Kenna — the chief deputy at the Queens County Clerk’s Office — reached out to Lori during the relief efforts, and they teamed up to volunteer.

“After Sandy struck, I noticed Lori kept posting about it on Facebook, and could tell that she wanted to help. So I informed her about one particular volunteer effort being headed up by the Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association, whose president is my friend, Ed Wendell. I picked her up in my minivan, along with items we both donated, and then drove to Woodhaven, where we packed the car as much as we could.

“We then drove to Howard Beach and delivered everything to state Sen. Joseph Addabbo’s office, where he had set up a distribution center,” Frank recalls.

• • •

Life will never be the same for these families, but thanks to the help of big-hearted volunteers and neighbors banding together, communities are coming back. They say every cloud has a silver lining. Well, a year after Sandy wreaked havoc on Thomas Brookins’s beloved Rockaway Beach community, it seems that new businesses, eateries, and shops have been popping up here and there. Thomas reports that surprisingly, the area has been gradually transforming into a popular vacation spot for city folk and even some celebs, who are buying waterfront homes.

Apparently they fell in love with it when they came to volunteer after Sandy.