February 1, 2013
Dear Editor of The Coaster,
As a ten year old kid, I haven’t seen many storms, but I experienced one of the
biggest ones first hand. Hurricane Sandy taught me about the importance of family,
a positive community and a government that helps the people.
Our house is in a very nice neighborhood, but it was demolished in the storm.
This almost changed my life. We stayed at my grandmother’s house during the
storm, but when it was over we went to see our house. I was horrified when I saw
what had happened. The house had flooded and was full of mud. I felt a feeling I
didn’t know before:depression.
We looked around our neighborhood, our whole street was wiped out,. Everybody
had lost so much. But everybody started sharing whatever they had with everyone
else. I was kind of surprised that people could still laugh and make jokes, even
though they had had such bad things happen. I was confused about that. How could
they laugh when they had such awful things happen?
Every day, everyone worked together, and they told each other that things would
get better.
There were a lot of strangers that work for the government and utilities who came
all day and night and told us they would get things going again. We listened when
President Obama came to New Jersey and told us that Americans help each other
and the government would help because that is what we, as Americans do for each
other. They had a lot of faith in that idea. They could see it, but I couldn’t at first.
It was hard to believe when you were looking at the mess, but, a funny thing
happened: I started to feel better and I got confident that all of us together could fix
things and restore the shore.
We are still staying at my grandmother’s house, but we know we can go home soon.
The schools were closed during this time, and my parents were worried that I might
miss what I have to know for the fourth grade tests. But, it was like being in school
because I learned really important ideas: When bad things happen, one person by
himself isn’t always enough to get things better. You need positive people to help
each other and then things are better than ever.
Aidan Matthews
Shark River Hills