The Army’s chief of staff delivered a speech about Hurricane Sandy to the Giants Friday that really hit home for at least one player.
Mathias Kiwanuka revealed his townhouse in Hoboken, N.J., was flooded with raw sewage during the storm Monday and won’t be inhabitable again for perhaps several months, a fact that made Gen. Raymond Odierno’s motivational talk more poignant for the veteran linebacker.
“It was a good message,” Kiwanuka said. “He reminded us to be focused on [Sunday’s home game against the Steelers] with everything that’s going on in this area, because that’s what we do. Getting out there on the field is an opportunity to play hard, bring some enjoyment and help everyone forget about this situation for a little while.”
Kiwanuka has company in Eli Manning when it comes to displaced Hoboken residents in the Giants’ locker room these days. Manning said he also has been given no timetable as to when his home will be livable again.
“I wish I did, but I don’t,” Manning said.
Kiwanuka recounted he and his family spent Monday night and Tuesday morning on the upper floors of his townhouse while the first floor was flooded with sewage and fuel.
“It’s going to be a long process just because what was in the water that flooded,” he said. “We’re going to have to look in the walls and get all of that stuff out of there, so we’re going to have to take it slow.”
Asked if he was ever scared, Kiwanuka admitted there were some very tense moments for himself, his wife, his young daughter and his father-in-law during the storm.
“The storm itself wasn’t the scary part, but the flooding was,” said Kiwanuka, who has moved his family to a nearby hotel. “The storm drains backed up, so the water was literally coming out of the ground and the draining pipes. And it came really fast, so the scary part was that you didn’t know when it was going to stop.”
As a result, Odierno’s message of pride and determination to the Giants after practice was particularly well-received by Kiwanuka.
Odierno, a Rockaway, N.J., native, is a longtime Giants fan and has delivered motivational talks to them before as a guest of coach Tom Coughlin. He is in the area as part of the NFL’s salute to the military this weekend, as well as to help with Sandy cleanup efforts.
“The toughness, the resiliency of the people in this Greater New York-New Jersey-Connecticut [area], the entire Eastern Seaboard, that’s been affected in such a way by this huge storm,” Coughlin said when asked to describe the gist of Odierno’s message.
Coughlin echoed Odierno’s point, saying: “[The area] will not be stopped by the storm. We will come back. We will fight our way through this. We will get things right again.”
Giants players uniformly praised Odierno’s speech for motivating them, but Kiwanuka in particular sounded as if he was ready to run through a brick wall after the general so adeptly put the week in perspective.
“It’s time to get back to work,” Kiwanuka said. “It’s New Jersey — it’s a tough state and a state full of tough people, and we’ll rebuild. We’ll get back on our feet.”