Barbara's Away Game
11/2/2012
I am gone…
Columnist’s note: This column is dedicated to all the victims of the century storm Sandy, for every single one...
...furthermore to Miri and Quique. They live in New York and without them I wouldn’t have written about Sandy.
In thankful cooperation with Quique:
Frankenstorm
Barbara’s Away Game featuring Quique
On Tuesday I got the question via mail if we have heard anything about Sandy. Frankenstorm out of USA’s view.
Of course! You can watch it in TV as well as in Germany.
I followed Sandy by the app of the German Tagesschau, the app of ABC 7 News and in the evening in the Nine o’clock News. This time there was almost no difference between the reporting of the broadcasts. Even the Tagesschau picks out sad stories of single victims and has a reporter standing in front of some flooded streets, dressed in a rain jacket and with blowzy hair. Only ABC 7 knots relations to the Bay Area, reporting about troops that prepares rescue like PG&E that sends cars and technicians to help fixing the power outages that will be expected and other helpers they already collected experience with hurricane Kathrina. Also they asked for blood donations.
Not until after the disaster news they celebrated the San Francisco Giants, which won the Baseball World Series.
I didn’t want to write about Sandy. This week I actually didn’t want to write a bit.
I was happy to hear something from Miri in New York. She lives in Upper Manhattan and I was a little bit concerned. She has a new blog, http://couleuresse.blogspot.com/, and informed us that everything was OK, only her emergency water in the bathtub sloshed a bit, cause the storm moved the tower building and the light flickered. She had all the time power. Quique, my sons’ friend, lives and studies in Lower Manhattan at the New York University. He reported in Facebook and kept friends and family up to date.
His online-storm-diary, a live documentation of his odyssey is a distinguished contemporary document. That’s sensational reporting the crowd wants to read. He gave me his permission to write about it and now I try to create his story with his pictures and even partly with his words. All pictures and all –Italic written words-: Thanks Quique!
Saturday 10/27 :
-Big Cloudy Apple-
What a great pic, Quique.
The hurricane is still raging in the Caribbean. They report that 43 people died and Sandy gains power on her way to the US coast. Nobody is sure where she will hit the USA but all weathermen are sure that she will be strong and powerful and will leave a swath of destruction because she will meet a Nordic cold front and she will be one part hurricane and one part blizzard. Sandy, century super-storm, called Frankenstorm the monster storm.
Same evening an 7.7 earthquake shakes offshore the west coast of Canada. Tsunami hazard for Hawaii and North California is called out. Should really both coasts of the USA will be hit by strong nature disaster on the same day?
Sunday 10/28: No post from Quique, Hawaii evacuated the shoreline, the tsunami slightly swashed. There are only reports of heavy traffic jam in Honolulu and empty shelves in supermarkets. The wave in North California is only two feet high. Relief!
Monday 10/29:
-the calm before the storm-
It’s raining!
-woke up this morning hoping to see 70mph winds, cars being moved down 3rd Ave by the flood, hell, even animals getting blown away. All I found was some wind and a couple of drops of rain. You're such a disappointment, Sandy. Step up your game.-
Of course you don’t wish a disaster but if they promised a hurricane and you only get raindrops you just be honest if you speak about disappointment. It seemed that the news-people felt almost in a same way as they spoke about only a two feet tsunami.
There was no tsunami; sad to say that it was not only rain. Storm Sandy kept what she promised.
-that’s more like it-
-so much for a city that never sleeps-
After the ConEd explosion at PG&E in New York City the lights turn off in Manhattan. Quique is lucky. His dorm has an emergency generator, there is still light in hallways and the fire alarm is working. Other dorms without working emergency generator are evacuated.
Tuesday, 10/30:
Little bit storm sightseeing, friends and family are concerned. You should better stay inside!
-power is back in midtown, traffic lights aren’t-
-phone booths are cool again-
Wednesday, 10/31, Halloween:
In Miris tower little witches and monsters are knocking on the door: trick or treat. Little bit normality in Upper Manhattan in other parts of the city the chaos just starts.
Lower Manhattan, the water comes the power leaves. The emergency generator in Quique’s dorm gives up the ghost. If they can’t fix it his dorm will be evacuated too.
-No electricity, no running water, we have now entered survival mode-
-Mass lootings in the Financial District, power's been down for 60 hours and counting, Third North's emergency generator is down. Chaos has officially taken over Lower Manhattan.-
-extraordinary situations bring people together. NYU students looking for a way out of the city-
Suddenly it became a disaster. After the power outage you are involved as person. The situation escalates and lucky are, who can get out.
Quique got a flight on Wednesday and was on his way to the airport to search refuge home in California. As long as there is no light in the University it will be closed.
There is a bus to JFK Airport which Quique took. Unfortunately the bus needed 5 hours and as Quique was at the airport the plane was gone since 10 minutes.
-Spending the night at JFK. This week I've gone from feeling like being in 'The Day After Tomorrow', to 'The Dark Knight rises', to 'I Am Legend', and now to 'The Terminal'. The next movie better be a happy movie set in Californian beaches.-
Oh man! Now he has to wait at the airport a whole night. Well, there is still running water and electricity.
-Tied myself to my bags using my power cord so that they wouldn't get stolen while I sleep tonight #refugeeproblems-
Friends and family sympathize on Facebook, in the news we can see that Quique counts to the lucky ones. Next day he catches his plane to San Francisco
Thursday 11/1:
Everybody is happy about his last post:
Some day there will be power again and the everyday life will be back in Lower Manhattan. Some day Quique will take the plane back to New York and will return to the University...
Breaking News!!!
While I pause with writing to take care of my family I get the note from Quique that in East Village, Quiques home in Lower Manhattan, the power is back. His dorm will be checked for security and after that it will be released for returning students. Quique sent me the information the students got.
It will take some time before our building is fully operating so we ask for your patience during these unprecedented conditions. IT MIGHT BE SOME TIME BEFORE ANYONE IS ALLOWED IN DUE TO FIRE AND SAFETY CHECKS (if you're here, you will not be able to re-enter the building if you leave). Here are some tips for settling back in:
Facilities & Water
-All facilities requests must be submitted at the Resource Center (10am-10pm) until further notice. Please allow more time than usual for repair.
-If your toilet is running when you return to your room please report this to the Resource Center immediately, this may cause flooding.
-Run water from all faucets and shower heads for at least one minute or until water is clear before using or drinking
Electricity
-Unplug all items before turning on a surge protector. Once you turn the surge protector on you may then plug items back in.
-Wait 4-6 hours before restocking your refrigerator and/or freezer to ensure it is cold enough to maintain perishable goods
Cleaning
-You are responsible for your own cleaning
-Thoroughly check all food in your refrigerator and immediately dispose of all perishable items and all items that say "refrigerate after opening"
-If you are unsure if an item is suitable for consumption, it should be disposed of.
-Garbage should be thrown away as soon as possible. Bag all garbage in your room and then place in the larger garbage bag in the trash room. Garbage bags are available in the Resource Center
Touch base with your RA once you're back in your room so they know you're safely returned
Happy End after Quique took part of several action-movies? It seems so!
For thousands of victims there won’t be a Happy End. Many lost a lot and some of them everything.
I watched an interview in the German Tagesschau. There was a guy who owned a pub in Hoboken. He lost everything, house and business in Kathrina and started with the pub in Hoboken couple of years ago. Now the pub is flooded and he has nothing left. He looked tired but he said, he has luck, because he lost everything already in Kathrina, so he had nothing more to loose than this pub. Other guys lost now everything. He sympathizes with them, because he knows how that feels.
That’s America: roly-poly mindset and in the worst situation finding something positive. I take my hat off.
Quique thank you so much for your cooperation. East Village has the power back. I wish you no further collateral damage. Hope that the next movie you will be in is something like absolute boring „Hangover“ and definitely not a Roland Emmerich Production!
11/19/2012
I am gone…
Human Dignity is Inviolable
Human dignity is inviolable; to respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority. Article 1, paragraph 1 of the German Constitution.
Article 1, paragraph 1!
Article II-61 of the European Constitution: Human dignity is inviolable. It shall be respected and protected.
Article II-61, anyway!
A proper equivalent in the Constitution of the United States is missing. There are basic approaches but no universal paragraph.
Who expects now an essay about humanity in the legislative or its realization in the executive will be disappointed although you could fill books with it.
Human dignity is inviolable. That just beforehand...
San Francisco is a fascinating city and as in all big cities we can find huge extremes of rich and poor. On the one hand cute Victorian houses and mansions with tiny towers, oriels and gardens shape the cityscape, on the other hand you see countless homeless and people on the edge of, no, much below under the breadline.
If you drive somewhere beyond the upper parts of the City you see lots of people with paper cups at crossings asking for some cents, one man, walking with a stoop and scuffing, pushes slowly a cart filled with all his belongings across the street, plastic bottles and cans in bags, taken out of trash tons in the hope to make some money with it. A woman in a wheel chair drives between the waiting cars, which stuck in traffic. She’s collecting coins. Her face has no wrinkles, her hair is well styled but I’m not able to rate her age. Again and again you see people sleeping at walls or relieving themselves at the same.
Human dignity is inviolable.
I have this sentence in my head while I let down my window to give a man who’s carrying a sign of paper with -I’m starving- on it some dollars. “Thank’s Ma’m!” “You’re welcome!” Without hesitation and deep out of my heart I answer but only because Nobbi is driving! Alone I would feel uncomfortable.
We use a parking lot on Mission Street right in front of some Mexicans who try to sell some stuff at the curb. One of them talks in Spanglish to us. He would like to have a dollar, he would look for our car while we are gone and he likes our dogs. He tries to pet Lissy, but she doesn’t like strangers. I say: “Please pet the other dog!” I promise him a dollar if the car is still there when we come back. He’s talking a lot I don’t understand, we are polite and joking and he promises that he will take care of our car.
We’re leaving and I’m looking automatically if I still have all my stuff. Pretty smart phone, purse, wallet and camera! Bad conscience? At most a bit!
We, Jonathan, Kyra, Nobbi and I want to have a look on some murals in Clarion Alley between 17th and 18th Street in Mission District. It’s not an upper part of the City, and without real man on my side I wouldn’t leave the car. Latest here you understand the automatic lock of the car doors.
Mission district is an interesting part of San Francisco. Partly it smells like fresh burned weed or human urine. Sad guises, tourists and common inhabitants are in balance depending on the street. You can find very seedy parts and suddenly you find yourself in a better-shaped neighborhood. Colorful, mixed, crisscross garbled. My feelings turn from fascination about wonder to discomfort. Even this is America! We’ve seen it in many movies.
(You can find in San Francisco neighborhoods you better stay out if you are white. That is a description in one of my guidebooks. Mission District isn’t that bad!)
When we are back to the car the Mexican is happy to see us. The car is fine, he watched it all the time, he said. He gets his Dollar and is asking me a lot. If Jonathan is my niño and Kyra my daughter and so on...Suddenly I’m able to understand his Spanglish. I answer in English.
We drive across the city towards Pacific Heights an upper part of San Francisco to make a stairway walk. I recognize that it is much more likable to walk around without the worry that you don’t leave with all the things you brought. Somehow we all are musing about that. As we come to a construction zone with a Dixi toilet covered in wood, I already have the sentence in my head again:
Human dignity is inviolable.
It would disturb the urban image, if you look out of your mansion window towards a Dixi toilet. There is remedy.
Just a few minutes southwards live people on asphalt, they even don’t have a Dixi toilet and it seems there is no remedy at all.
Human dignity is inviolable.
You can read in Wikipedia that it means all human, independent from their background or other features like gender, age or shape, have the same worth, because they all have one worth protecting thing in common, the dignity!
I never want forget this! No matter if I’m in fear, scared, terrified, or even disgusted! Also if the human on the other side seems as he would have lost his dignity. Maybe it’s not to detect but eventually the dignity is the only thing he has left and exactly this makes it so hard to act unbiasedly.
Human dignity is inviolable; to respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority. Article 1, paragraph 1 of the German Constitution. It should be not only the duty of authorities. We all should respect it.
This is the important key-difference between America and Germany I always was looking for: Why I am happy and proud to be German? Because of article 1, paragraph 1 of our German Constitution!