City airports became ghost towns—except for a scattering of homeless people, National Guardsmen on patrol and a few stuck fliers.
“They don’t know when we can get out — they said maybe Wednesday,” said Amanda Thompson, 31, who was trying to get home to Austin, Texas, from La Guardia with her pal Diego Branati, 36. “We didn’t go back to our hotel—we’d just be stuck inside,” she said.
For Branati, an Italian citizen on his first trip to the United States, seeing the National Guardsmen patrol an empty airport terminal made it seem “like we’re in a movie.”
“There has been nobody at our airline all morning,” Thompson said.
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In Sea Gate, Brooklyn, stroke victim Ralph Stokes said he planned to stick it out in his home on Atlantic Avenue. He had no choice, he said, calling himself stranded.
“I was trying to get to my sister’s but the subway’s not running,” he said. “I have no money and the bank’s closed. My sister lives on Church Avenue, but she has no car. I’m going to put my[self in the] hands of God almighty to get through this.”
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In Jersey City, NJ, Glen McCloskey, a yacht captain, remained on his 118-foot Swiftships yacht, Rebecca, with a few hardy crew members as the boat slowly began to rise with the storm surge.
Still, his loyalty does know some bounds: He won’t go down with his ship. He’s rented rooms at a nearby hotel, just in case the storm gets dangerous enough to send a captain with 30 years’ experience back onto dry land.
“I’m worried about the tide,” he said. “Worst-case scenario is everything breaks loose and we end up on the [sea] wall.”
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“I’m prepared, but I’m not too worried,” Hoboken, NJ, resident David Noyes, 26, said, as he and a friend checked out the flooding near the waterfront Pier A Park yesterday morning.
Noyes said he lives on the fourth floor of a building near First Street and Bloomfield Street and planned to ride out the storm.
“I got cold pizzas, Chinese food, beer — I’m good for a couple days. I expect power to be back in a couple days. I’m not too worried.”
Noyes said that, for now, he has power.
“I think this will all be under water in less than 24 hours,” he said, referring to the waterfront area where he stood. “[I] figure it’d be good to go for a walk before we can’t.”
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In Coney Island, Popeye’s chicken on Surf Avenue did a brisk business just a block from the turf-battered beach and despite the evacuation order.
It helped that nearby Nathan’s was closed. It also helped that emergency workers have to eat, too.
“It’s busy,” said Moon Ali, manager for a day at age 25. He’d just sold meals to a small crowd of workers from the Midwood Ambulance Service, who sat eating inside three ambulances parked outside the fast-food joint.
“It’s better than slow,” Ali said of the brisk business, giving a nervous look out the store window at the wet, windy street.