Sandy One Year Later – Jim Gearhart Remembers

Jim Gearhart shares his memory of Superstorm Sandy.

My Rottweiler Blitz and I were camped out at the station, as the morning group traditionally does when weather threatens our getting in for the next day. I had taken over a sales office, and my commerads had all staked out their claims. We knew a major weather event was a’ brewing, but had no idea how it would affect us.So I passed the late afternoon and early evening with my dog, a couple of books, snacks and a bottle of wine. At intervals I would take Blitz outside to perform dogly duties.

At a few minutes before seven Governor Christie and his coterie arrived. When I went out to our kitchen area, the Governor was sitting at the table with Eric, Jill, Irene, and Alan. We chatted,no politics for a change, about the weather and about the governor getting his family to the station, where they would meet with him and go as a group to ride out the storm at the Governor’s Mansion in Princeton.  At seven, the governor and Eric  went into the studio and I went back to my lair.

I was deep into Kierkegaard when Jill came down the hall with two little girls to play with Blitz.  They were the Governor’s daughters and charming kids. The Family had arrived.

I remember the last time I took Blitz out the wind had kicked up so dramatically that I didn’t go far from the door and came back in for fear that had he stood with a leg in the air he would blow over.

Of course we began our storm coverage early in the morning. That’s when the impact of what had happened the night before hit like a club. I had never in my wildest imaginings forseen the devastation that had occurred in that short time while, except for great winds, we had been reasonably comfortable.

Then as reports came in of the extent of the ravaging I was seized with anxious visions of my own home crushed beneath the huge walnut tree just in front. After a tense trip home conjuring up all manner of calamity, Stately Gearhart Manor had hardly been touched.  It was then I began to absorb the enormity of the events of the night before.

It is still overwhelming a year later.