Staten Island needs AMERICA'S Help! Where are YOU?

Okay - Please HELP THE TRI-STATE AREA!! Please.... As you'll see below, I always try to look at the postive... but there is nothing positive inside the suffering of people all around us who need America's help TODAY! I'm executing this post now because so many thousands of families in the Tri-State region are still in pain & suffering deeply due to the utter physical devastation they endured as a result of Superstorm Sandy that can't be improved with some magic wand. I'm so so sorry & upset that the main visual the nation witnessed for weeks on-end was THAT rollcoaster from Seaside's Boardwalk Playland. I have nothing against the roller coaster itself, but I traveled across the country right after the storm and I know - for a fact - that this specific pic (combined with THAT "City of Sin" impression bolstered by the visual that arrived with THAT MTV's show -Jersey Shore)absolutely turned people off across the nation. It literally translated like this in the minds of some: Big deal - New Jersey's Playland was damaged. Could it be that these visuals consistently distributed digitally around the world led to people thinking maybe NJ actually kind of got what she deserved? I can't possibly go there right now, but read on... What the media forgot to say after showing THAT roller coaster pic every single day for 60+ days is that in a five mile radius of THAT roller coaster & MTV's Jersey Shore Fake Insanity House, 80% of the homes & businesses of people like you & me were completely and utterly destroyed. People are still crying tonight. Please help the Jersey Shore Communities, and if not this area could everyone please find their way to the glorious southern tip of Staten Island where the LACK of TIMELY care, compassion, concern & real-time assistance is a disgraceful moment for the record books for this community that lost more than most in this nation. NOAA reported that it was 32.5 foot waves that hit Sandy Hook and went right over the top of that two-story MAST High School! 14+ foot waves hit Front & Water Street on the East River side of Downtown Manhattan! 10 thousand workers are displaced & thousands of residents are out of their homes in the Wall Street area until March, June, next year & beyond AND they didn't even get the DIRECT HIT State Island took AND NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT either place? Could it be that no one cares? Really? What the heck do any of us think happened to Staten Island? How come no one is paying attention or discussing it? My fellow Americans this event is NOT the equivalent of Twitter - I'm sorry America but Superstorm Sandy cannot be over after 140 characters. If you operate thinking like that, people will die. We know you moved on already, (perhaps because the details are too painful to focus on?) but please, please come back to us to help Staten Island; then find your way to America's Jersey Shore - thousands of people need YOU desperately! Wow - this is what I wrote the day before Thanksgiving: The Sunday before Hurricane Sandy arrived, we raced from THE Ohio State University to secure our Pt. Pleasant NJ home @ the Jersey Shore. After visiting our son Scott, a freshman @ OSU, we found ourselves literally escorted on the Pennsylvania Turnpike by a massive exercise of excellence & precision! We witnessed a remarkable caravan of utility bucket trucks and assorted vehicles driven by hard hats, line crews & support personnel - HEROES ALL - from First Energy's Ohio Edison, The Illuminating Company, Toledo Edison Utilities and other entities. In the name of business continuity & disaster recovery they were all headed east to position themselves before the storm to aid sister utility company Jersey Central Power & Light and the residents of my state. So YES - for 8 awesome hours I was humbled by and focused on the thousands of brave & skilled workers who had left their families in the Midwest to help families in harm's way. As we watched the Weather Channel for updates from Ohio to NJ we grew anxious; but honestly the courage & strength etched on the faces of these mobilized men comforted us. I live one mile from the ocean & Pt. Pleasant was in the dark for many hours before Sandy came ashore. When it actually hit landfall, the earth literally moved underneath us; our two-story home shook violently; windows rattled & squealed as hurricane-force winds raged & utility transformers exploded in the night. With emergency sirens in high gear, boats & trees crashed all around us. As we huddled quietly with candles in the center of our house, the girl who works in the cube next to you in the office (ME!) had no clue until morning that homes up the road had been violently ripped from their foundations & tossed into the Atlantic Ocean & Metedeconk River while others exploded in flames and burned to the ground. We live 60 miles south of New York City, but we felt one million miles away from everything that night. The day after, local emergency personnel, U.S. Coast Guardsmen in helicopters and local residents in boats & wet suits worked 12-hours straight plucking terrified residents from flooded homes delivering them to safety as a strong gaseous smell ruled our air. (there was a local Public Works HERO named Jude Walker who would retrieve fellow residents from the second story balconies of their flooded homes using a giant Front-Loader Tractor for 17 hours straight during & after the storm). Where were YOU? It felt dangerous & the landscape looked like a war zone with snapped telephone poles, hanging wires, battered cars, damaged homes and shattered 'stuff' washed up everywhere.... Like so many other places in NY and NJ, it was the hardest & saddest day in the history of my hometown. I didn't cry until I stood among the devastation hugging neighbors in utter shock who had almost drowned. Six feet of water was still engulfing homes in the neighborhoods to the east, west & south of us, but our home & entire block was somehow dry & safe. Thousands of fellow residents and a few of my family members were not so lucky. As was reported, there was no power, no heat, no stores or restaurants, no cash machines, no gas for generators or cars, no mass transit, no food to purchase - nothing. This went on for days which turned into weeks for some... This storm was bigger than every modern amenity we had ever known. High Tides, air pressure systems, winds, the eye, predictive analytics, full moon = perfect storm? Honestly, we're not focused on any topic except getting the lives of fellow citizens restored right now. We do know the NOAA Wave Buoys reported that 32.5 foot waves (32.5 feet!) had hit our shores contributing to 'that' tidal surge which destroyed a gorgeous landscape rich with memories that had embraced generations of our families. It was a historic & massive amount of water that left friends & strangers alike haunted by their own personal stories of 'swimming-for-survival' with children & pets in tow. Hard to imagine & difficult to hear? Yes. The details nightmares are made of? Yes. Having said all that, we are very thankful in My Little Town that there are ONLY stories of "survival" to tell. Some towns were not so lucky. Thanksgiving stands for so many blessing we are grateful for in 2012! As I celebrate all the brave men, women & volunteers who left the safety and comfort of their own homes to help fellow citizens see light after unimaginable darkness, allow me to salute all the Foundations for contributing so generously to the Red Cross during this difficult time. I offer my thanks to colleagues & friends who are contributing in so many personal, creative & special ways. Finally, we are thankful for everyone who is helping to keep us 'Jersey Strong!' 'Jersey Strong' is not a slogan or tag-line. It's a powerful mindset that inspires meaningful action! Restoring-the-Shore is mostly about providing support & strength to wonderful people who need help recovering from a life interrupted. Weeks & weeks after I wrote all of the above... Today - January 5th - I'm trying to find new ways to keep spirits high... But a talented & cherished family friend of 40 years who lost his home after he & his beautiful wife were rescued by the Coast Guard on the west-side of the Metedeconk was literally crushed by the trunk of a Sandy-damaged tree on Thanksgiving morning as he attempted to remove it by himself from his property where he had built his family home and art studio. This remarkable musician, teacher & coach of 33 years stepped into the hole created @ the root of a downed tree and it crushed him as he tried to cut roots during that morning-of-thanks as his wife, children and neighbors labored helplessly to try to save him. It was not to be so we could no longer say "everyone in our circle survived." I believe in Twitter, but I also believe you can't hide behind 140 characters to ignore the details of the reality around you. Please help the Tri-State Area. People are living in hell & this road is long from OVER. It will never be the same for those of us who grew up along these shore, but you can still help. ~ Any effort to Restore-these-Shores will be appreciated. In the meantime, God help all our fellow citizens who are suffering in confused silence & alone today. Thank you. With respect & gratitude, As TishTrek cries...