Hurricane Sandy in Pasadena

Not everyone in Maryland was so lucky, but for our household, hurricane Sandy was…

A time to catch up on sleep…

…to play in the “fort” Tia Laura made…

…or to write messages on the steamed up windows.

Don’t get me wrong, we treated the event seriously, prepared for it, and knew its potential for harm. We just were so blessed to not have any trees knocked over, not experience flooding, nor did we lose power. One glitch was Miranda was stuck in Chicago, her flight cancelled, she became one statistic in many. Enric had to travel to Pittsburgh to pick her up as she finally  found transportation via bus. Mom said she prayed so hard, she had already faced one of those living alone, and remembers how cold she was when power was lost. She didn’t want to re-live that again.

Too many were not so lucky…

Reporters and witnesses have struggled for words to describe the destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy, the largest recorded Atlantic storm north of North Carolina. While shots of flooding in Manhattan have dominated the media, much of the damage has occurred along the more fragile coastlines nearby and has yet to be meaningfully tabulated.

What figures we do have are in every way astonishing:

38 reported dead in the United States, so far. (Updated.)

8,000,000 people without power, from South Carolina to Maine.

28 inches of snow in Davis, WV.

496,393 photos tagged #Sandy on Instagram.

15,000 flights cancelled on Monday and Tuesday, and counting.

13.88 feet of high water at the Battery in New York Harbor (storm surge + high tide).

200 people, approximately, evacuated from NYU-Tisch Hospital after power loss on Monday night, when water flooded the basement and broke the generator.

20 babies, about, carried down the stairs during the NYU-Tisch Hospital evacuation in battery-powered respirators.

6,100 people in emergency shelters in New York City alone, according to Mayor Bloomberg’s morning press conference.

7 subway tunnels inundated with water.

4.7 million kids home from school on Monday.

190 firefighters deployed to the Breezy Point fire.

3.6 billion dollars of federal aid available.

7 cities, including Atlantic City, Baltimore and Philadelphia, set all-time low-pressure records.

Not everyone took it easy as our bunch did…

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney collected donated supplies for hurricane victims on the East Coast on Tuesday, while urging supporters to give money to the Red Cross at a hastily arranged “relief event” in Ohio.