As Hurricane Sandy ripped through the East Coast last week, University of Dayton students prayed for the safety of their family and friends living in the affected areas of the country.
Chelsea Ciufo, a junior communication major from Rochester, N.Y., and Kristina Demichele, a senior English major who has extended family near the shore of Boston, said they were worried about how the storm would affect their families on the East Coast.
Demichele said she was able to have contact with her family despite the storm’s impact.
“They said the water went over the seawall and was hitting the houses located on the shore,” Demichele said.
Demichele said her cousin owns a restaurant located on the shore and was worried about how the hurricane would affect his business. In order to prepare, he purchased back-up generators and invited members of his family without power to come have dinner at the restaurant during the storm.
“My cousin was well prepared for the storm, but a majority of my family was interested in watching the storm to see what was happening,” Demichele said. “They are pretty adventurous.”
Demichele said the houses near her family’s did not have significant damage and only lost power for around 12 hours. She said the area in Boston where they live essentially shut down for the day to make sure the residents were safe when the storm hit.
“My family was worried as to how the storm would affect them, and thankfully it was not like the conditions New Jersey had,” Demichele said.
Demichele was also worried about how the storm would affect her family while she was here at UD. She was most concerned about her grandparents, who have a beach house along the shore. She said she was thankful that the seawall was tall enough to block the water from the houses in that area.
“I love Boston so much and I didn’t want the city to be ruined,” Demichele said.
Ciufo said she has been in contact with her family and that they have not had a significant problem with damage caused by the storm. Ciufo’s family told her that trees were knocked over on her street and that they had lost power for about a day.
“They told me that my neighbor’s tree fell across the street, but I don’t think damage was caused to any of the houses surrounding,” Ciufo said.
Ciufo said she was most concerned with how her sister, a sophomore at Long Island University, would be affected by the storm.
“My sister’s classes were canceled all week and all the public transportation was stopped,” Ciufo said.
Ciufo said she has not had a chance to hear the details of what happened at LIU from her sister, but is curious as to what special preparations the school made to make sure the students were safe.
Ciufo’s family didn’t think the storm would affect their area as much as others and she said she is unaware of any special preparations they made before the storm hit.
Ciufo said she believes that the government did all that it could to prepare residents for the storm’s damage by stopping public transportation to ensure most citizens would be indoors when the storm hit.
“The aftermath seems to me to be the worst part of the storm and having to deal with all the damage that was done,” Ciufo said.
