Joaquin Is Going That Way...

Everybody’s been storm-watching for the past 24 hours or so.  They all remember Sandy and, from what the weather reports say, Joaquin is even more powerful.  But the wind and rain that’ve battered us today aren’t his fault:  A Nor’easter has worked its way along this part of the coast.

Joaquin, as of today...we hope!

Sandy became a “superstorm” when  merged with a Nor’easter before making landfall near Atlantic City, New Jersey.  It doesn’t seem that Joaquin will do anything like that:  He seems content remaining out to sea, well to the east of Montauk Point.  Still, he could gift our Nor’easter with even more wind and water than it might have whipped against, and dropped on, us:  As meteorologists tell us, the course of a hurricane is one of the most difficult things to predict.

There seems to be an interesting divide in how much concern people who lived through Sandy’s ravages are expressing about the prospect of another Nor’easter, hurricane or—superstorm?! From what my own admittedly unscientific observations, the folks on the South Shores of Staten Island and Brooklyn, and in the Rockaways, are bracing themselves.  Whether or not they’re making actual preparations, they are taking the reports and warnings seriously—more seriously, some admit, than they did when Sandy approached. 

On the other hand, residents of Long Beach and other communities on the South Shore of Nassau County—which, arguably, incurred even more damage than Brooklyn and at least as much as the Rockaways—seem more blasé.  As one man said, “I lost everything then.  I’m not worried now.”  But people in other devastated areas also “lost everything”.  In fact, in the Breezy Point area of the Rockaway Peninsula, houses that weren’t blown apart or washed away burned to the ground when water wreaked havoc with the electrical wires.  I recall seeing people who were able to retrieve only family photo albums before fleeing, or upon returning.

As for me:  I am watching the storms.  Aside from not having classes for a week, I wasn’t affected much by Sandy.  I want to make sure I can say the same thing about Joaquin or the Nor’easter.

Then again…Joaquin couldn’t possibly affect us as much as Sandy did.  After all, Joaquin is a male name, while both males and females are named Sandy.  Hell hath no fury like that of both genders, combined!

A Summer Afternoon After The Storm, Fire And Crash

People fantasize about the sort of summer afternoon we had today.  There was lots of sunshine, very little humidity and practically no clouds as the temperature rose to 30C (86F).

So, of course, I went for a ride.  After crossing the bridge into Rockaway Beach, I turned right and rode along rows of serene-looking homes that masked the tragedies the Queens coastal communities of Rockaway Park and  Belle Harbor have experienced.  Of course, they bore the brunt of Superstorm Sandy, but perhaps survived it a bit better than some other areas.  

Eleven years earlier, Flight 587--which had taken off from JFK Airport only two and a half minutes earlier, bound for the Dominican Republic--crashed into the ocean and sent its debris flying into those homes.  Although it is the second-deadliest air crash in US history, it has been forgotten, probably because it happened only a few weeks after 11 September.

To see the neighborhood today, one would hardly know--save for a monument on 116th Street--that it had experienced something so horrific. I could say the same for Breezy Point, about four miles to the west on the Rockaway Peninsula.  Few areas were more devastated by the storm:  In addition to the destruction wrought by the wind, rain and tides, 100 houses burned to the ground in a fire sparked when a storm surge inundated power lines.

Homes, stores and other buildings have been restored and rebuilt.  Still , it all looked rather forlorn. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that  almost nobody was out and about in spite of the weather.

 
At least it was all there and I could ride it.  And I did--over the bridge to Brooklyn, to Floyd Bennett and Brighton Beach and Coney Island.  At least it looked like a summer day at Coney Island, with people swimming and fishing the water, walking, riding and lounging on the boardwalk and eating all of those unhealthy foods sold in boardwalk stands. 

Then I rode home, along the promenade that passes along the Verrazano Bridge and up Hipster Hook to my place.  I was grateful for another good ride, even if it wasn't long or challenging. 

On (Not) Riding In The Rain

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, every cyclist has his or her own opinions and/or personal policy about riding in the rain—unless, of course, said cyclist lives in a place where it doesn’t rain.  

Mine goes something like this:  If the rain’s so thick I can’t see out my window, I don’t go.  If there’s a steady rain and I’d planned on riding with someone who’s rarin’ to go, I’ll pedal through the precip.  On the other hand, if it’s very cold and raining, I won’t ride unless I must.

Probably the one other condition—besides zero visibility—that will keep me from riding in the rain is gale-force or near-gale force winds driving the rain.  Such conditions are part of what’s commonly called a nor’easter in this part of the world.  Such a storm is what combined with a Category One hurricane—you know, the kind pensioners in Florida endure like marriages in which they’ve grown miserable (“This is hell, but at least it will be over soon enough!”)—to give us Superstorm Sandy.

It was raining heavily when I woke up yesterday morning, and it continued through the day.  There was some hint of the wind that was forecast; by the middle of the morning it looked as if it would blow leaves off trees before they had a chance to turn color.  Even so, it wasn’t quite as strong as I somehow expected.

Did we have a “nor’easter” yesterday?  The weather forecasters said we did.  Somehow, though, I felt a little cheated: not only was the wind not quite as strong as I expected, but I think—perhaps incorrectly—that it’s too early in the season for a true “nor’easter”, which I associate with mid- to late-fall or winter.  (Sandy came just before Halloween.)  Still, I didn’t ride.  And I feel I kept to my unofficial policy:  At times throughout the day, it was all but impossible to see through the rain.

A Ride Into The Memory Of A Storm

Life is slowly returning to normal, some eight months after Superstorm Sandy.

I saw evidence of this on my ride to Point Lookout yesterday.

A stretch of the Rockaways Boardwalk has been reconstructed, and another part has reopened.  What's interesting is that you can see both of them together:

Concrete and composites are being used to reconstruct the sections that were destroyed.  Of course, that fact begs the question of whether such a structure may still be properly called a boardwalk.

Then there were parts that were merely fixed.  You can tell these parts by the new guardrails:

It's hard to tell just how powerful the storm was when the sea looks so calm.  However, when I got to Point Lookout, the tide was in:

The water tumbled against those rocks just a few moments after I took that photo.  Although skies were clear and gave nary a hint of even a shower, it's hard not to remember the storm.

Less Powerful Than Sandy, But Hotter Than Liberty

Today I took a ride I've taken many times before:  up to the Bronx, across to Harlem and the George Washington Bridge, then down the Palisades to Jersey City, Bayonne and Staten Island.  

Although high, puffy clouds floated across the sunny sky and breezes lightened the early summer warmth in the air, surprisingly turbulent waves chopped against the Jersey City shoreline:

The water is actually closer than it appears: It lapped up against my tires.  If the Hudson River--really an estuary of the Atlantic at that point--could be so roiled on such a serene day, you can only imagine the storm surge that Sandy brought.   

On the ferry from Staten Island, I got to talking with a young woman and a friend of hers who'd just arrived in New York from California.  So, of course, he wanted to get a look at the Statue of Liberty.  We exchanged e-mail addresses before embarking.  As I crossed Battery Park from the ferry terminal, I chanced upon this:

"My Girl Is Hotter Than The Statue of Liberty"

    

Always Coney Island

On Saturday, I took my first ride to Coney Island since Superstorm Sandy.  Although some parts of the boardwalk were closed and I saw damaged and destroyed buildings, as well as beach erosion, things weren't as bad as I expected.  Then again, last week, I rode through Rockaway Beach in Queens and Long Beach in Nassau County, two of the most devastated areas.  In those two places, the boardwalks were completely destroyed, houses leveled and streets and the beach strafed as if they'd been hit with millions of rounds of mortar-fire.  At least most of Coney Island was still intact.

Still, I was surprised to see this:

I have memories of Coney Island, and Nathan's, going back half a century.  One of my earliest childhood memories was being there for a Fourth of July celebration with my mother, her parents, my father, two of my uncles and one of my aunts.  I recall it because, according to my  mother, I wondered aloud, "Did you tell all of these people it's my birthday?"

I have been to the boardwalk billed as the world's most famous hundreds of times, at all times of the day and year. Never can I recall seeing the original Nathan's closed--before the other day.

So I wasn't surprised to see all of the other stores and restaurants shuttered.  Granted, many of them would not have been open at this time of year.  But even with the few people who wandered on to the intact areas of the boardwalk, Coney Island seemed desolate in a way I never could have previously imagined.  In fact, I don't think I ever used "Coney Island" and "desolate" in the same sentence until now.

But I actually rather enjoyed it. For one thing, the few residents I saw didn't seem shell-shocked.  But, more to the point, the sky--from which snow flurries floated to the cold but suprisingly serene sea--was, in its gray light, as bracing to look at as the chilly air felt against my skin.

Because Coney Island has offered me such sensations, I will continue to ride there.  I don't know when CI will "come back" or if everything will indeed be open for Memorial Day weekend.  But at least it's still there, and I can still ride to it.

A Century After The Storm

I'd forgotten about Daylight Savings Time. So that, of course, meant I'd slept an hour later than I thought.

Then I realized I'd have another hour of daylight at the end of yesterday.  Plus, something about yesterday's noon light seemed very appealing.  What I didn't realize, then, was that it reflected some light I would see later in the day.

I also thought that going for a daylong ride (or, at least one of more than a couple of hours) would help to shake me out of the emotional funk and physical lethargy that enveloped me.  I was, as they say, sick and tired of being sick and tired.  

So--you guessed it--I got on my bike.  I think Max and Marley knew I was going to be gone for a while because I left extra servings of food and water for them.  

Anyway, I took out Tosca, figuring that if I rode for only two hours or so, I'd at least get a good workout.  That's one reason I recommend having a fixed-gear bike:  If you're pressed for time, you can still get in a pretty vigorous ride.

I started in the direction of Rockaway Beach.  I hadn't been there since the first Sunday of January.  It was a little more than two months since Superstorm Sandy; the streets still looked like sections of the Ho Chi Minh trail after the bombings and people still seemed shell-shocked.  I'd heard that there was still much devastation, but I was determined to ride out that way.

Well, as the day was breezy and chilly, but still quite pleasant, after crossing the bridge into the Rockaways, I wanted to keep on riding.  And so I did--alongside the sections of the boardwalk the storm tore away, past stores that still haven't opened and houses still vacant.  But some people, at least, seemed to be taking Sunday afternoon walks and otherwise taking back what they'd owned in their lives.  That may have been the reason why I just wanted to keep on riding.  

And I kept on riding, until I got to Point Lookout.

That meant I'd already done the second-longest ride I've done so far this year, and the third-longest since Sandy.  I felt invigorated, to say the least:  I pedaled into a breeze-bordering-on-a-wind most of the way out.

You'll notice that Tosca is standing aslant.  She's not "posing"; it was the only way I could stand her up.  As I expected, the tides had tossed rocks and slates into positions in which no one had seen them before.  And there was a lot of erosion:

That mushroom-shaped thing is an Army Corps of Engineers marker.  In the two decades or so in which I've been riding to Point Lookout, it was always level with the ground and usually dusted with sand.

The bay loooked as it usually does, if a bit more forlorn:

I know they're buoys, but a part of me wondered whether they weren't markers for something lost during the storm.

I also couldn't help but to wonder whether those trees were denuded by the season or the storm.  After all, it happened in late October, right about the time leaves attain, or start to pass, the peak of their autumnal color in these parts.

Even in the middle of such musings, I didn't feel sad.  After all, everything and everybody I'd seen during my ride was a survivor.  Plus, the light wind into which I'd pedaled would blow at my back as I started my return ride.  I felt stronger,and the ride seemed quicker.

And, by the time I got to Far Rockaway, the sea and sky refracted a layer of visual frost through the late-afternoon sun.

It was, I realized, a later-day image of what I'd seen when I left my apartment just after noon.

By the time I got home, I'd pedaled my first metric century (about 105 km, or 65 miles) this year, and my first since Superstorm Sandy.  

Apres Sandy, Une Deluge Plus?

There's supposed to be another "Frankenstorm" headed this way.  It will be a bit different from Sandy, though, because while this storm will involve a Nor'easter, as Sandy did, it won't have a hurricane powering it.  Instead, a winter storm from the west will join the Nor'easter that's headed this way.

So, while the storm is exected to bring high tides, it won't bring anything like the surge Sandy brought. (So the weather forecasters say, and so we hope).  It also could bring us a fair amount of snow, along with or instead of rain.  However, it seems like the biggest snow drifts will be well to the north of me, in the Boston-Cape Cod-Providence area.

Still, I can't help but to wonder what this storm will bring.  Will I see anything like this in my neighborhood?

From Utility Cycling

Will this storm give rise to local counterparts of Bud Schaefer?  Will it lead to the use of alternative fuels?

                         

An Island After The Storm: Following Virginia

The past couple of days have been insane.  I must say, though, that apart from a computer malfunction, it's been good.

Along the way, I took a detour onto Roosevelt Island, a place where I hadn't been since Superstorm Sandy.

At least it's still there. However, I was disappointed--though  not surprised--to see this:

The park at the northern end of the island has been closed off.  That means you can't go to the lighthouse (I'm sorry, Virginia!) at the point where the East River opens into Long Island Sound.  

You can't see it in this photo, but some of the promenade on the other side of the light house broke up like a window struck by a brick.

About half a kilometer south of the lighthouse, on the Manhattan-facing shore, an observation deck shaped like the bow of a ship was also closed off:

I stopped there anyway because, when I looked to my left, I saw visual proof that renaming the Queensborough (59th Street) Bridge after Ed Koch was a terrible idea:

I don't think he had the emotional complexity to appreciate, much less reflect, the light and color of this vista.  Besides, he only went to Roosevelt Island--over which the bridge passes--and Queens under great duress. 

Here, I believe, is a more fitting monument to him:

It's called "The Marriage of Real Estate and Money". Tom Otterness made it, I'm sure, with his tongue at least somewhat in his cheek.  Still, it is an apt expression of Koch's real legacy.

On the island's southern end--just below the shadow of the bridge--a monument to Franklin D. Roosevelt, for whom the island was named  (Previously, it was known as Welfare Island) has been built.  It opened just a few days before Sandy struck.  It fared a bit better than the park around the lighthouse.

You can't bring your bike into it:  You can leave it at the gate and a Parks employee will watch it for you.  However, it's a rewarding dismount:

Once you pass the obelisk, you can descend steps that are like the rows of an ampitheatre and share a view with the birds perched on the rock:

After taking that in, I turned around and walked back to my bike.  As I have a lousy sense of direction, I needed something to light the way out:

If I didn't know any better, I'd think that the leaves left their color when the fell off those branches.  However, I know those trees are newly-planted.  I almost wish that they won't bud and bloom this spring.

I don't think the season makes much difference to this denizen of the island:

If that photo were the frame of a comic strip, this avian creature's though-bubble would probably read, "Silly Humans!"