Ryan in New York: Superstorm Sandy

Rotorua's Ryan Christensen is in New York, he is keeping us posted with what he has been up to:

Sunday night felt like the beginning of a movie. Everyone knew that the large hurricane Sandy was going to hit the east coast sometime Monday afternoon/evening.

Supermarkets were packed and lines for food and water were huge. Walking home with my survival supplies, everyone seemed to have the same idea, get home and bunker down.

My apartment is on the third floor in the back of a sturdy brick building in Grammercy park, Manhattan. To be perfectly honest the storm itself went past almost unnoticed. It felt like I had been in much bigger gusts and rain when I lived in Wellington. The storm seem to come and go fairly quickly but what remained was the effect on the city and surrounding areas.

On Monday night as the storm was passing through we lost power at around 8pm. Waking up the next morning without TV, cell service or the internet, information was hard to come by.

On a walk the next morning it was clear that everywhere south of the Empire State Building on 34th street had lost power. There were trees down over the roads and a mass exodus of people walking uptown to find food and power.

There were people offering their cars to charge phones and businesses that still had power were hooking up multi plug boards everywhere to help people out. I don't think electrical code matters when your iPhone is going flat.

We had no idea when the power was going to be make on so I waited it out in my apartment and survived by candlelight. After two days in the apartment without power the thing that was the most frustrating was the boredom.

Cabin fever well and truly set in. I found myself going for walks just to get out of the house. One evening I walked up to the Times Square movie theatres for something to do. It was so strange walking in darkness with no building lights, street lights or any kind of light. Then all of the a sudden the next block would have light. The city that never sleeps was in fact sleeping.

Something that was really crippling New York was the subway system being down. The lower end of Manhattan is a lifeline for New Jersey, Brooklyn and the other Burroughs of New York to enter the city. Without the subways running many people I know are stranded where they are. I found out that the apartment would be a week without power so I thought it was about time to abandon ship.

My friend Michael is in Williamsberg and he had power so I trekked over the Williamsberg bridge to come stay at the now commonly known "Refugee centre".  He had a few friends who were also without power to that had come over.

Thank you to everyone who contacted myself or Mum to find out how I was doing. I am fine and power is said to back on tomorrow which is great. I feel for all the people that are worse off than me. I'm really looking forward to things going back to normal and school resuming Monday, Fingers crossed. I want to thank Michael and his flatmates for their hospitality and helping a kiwi get through the disaster. Feeding, watering and charging my iPhone.

My heart goes out to those who lost their lives and their homes.

To read more of Ryan's blog visit http://ryansweek.wordpress.com/