Opinion: Riding Out Sandy in the Rockaways

Jonah Markowitz

Life after Sandy. James Culleton prepares for a day of fishing aboard his boat, the Easy Rider, in Howard Beach, Brooklyn, in the summer of 2013.

WHEN the morning tide came in you could tell it was going to be a big one. I live in Arverne, a neighborhood in the Rockaways, and in the morning when I was walking up Thursby Avenue I could already see the water coming in on that first tide.

But no one was really panicking yet. We get flooding from time to time. But the wind hadn't even started blowing yet and already the water was coming down the road.

That's when I see these two swans. They're just as happy as can be floating down the middle of the road. The water went around the corner and the swans went that way too. I wonder what happened to them.

Come nighttime, the wind's really starting to blow. I didn't really think about evacuating. My idea — I was going to sit in my boat and ride it out like a Viking. I've been in hurricanes before.

Anyway, during the day I caught a load of fish 'cause, you know, when a big storm's coming you better have something on hand that you can sell afterward.

Around 7 p.m. I get in my truck. Suddenly I see a huge wave coming down the road. I turn down another road and there's an electrical wire in the water, sparking, so I go up the next street.

I turn around and see a friend of mine on the porch of his house and I say, "Hey, Mike, you need a hand?"

He says, "Yeah, come on in, I could use some help."

We go down in the basement and start putting up all the electrical equipment. We take a break and watch a little TV, try to see what's happening on the Weather Channel. It doesn't sound too bad so far.

All of a sudden the basement window lets go and the water starts pouring in. The kids go flying up the stairs and we're following them.

I realize I gotta move my truck. I reach in my pocket and I remember my keys are downstairs under six feet of water. I can't get home.

Now all hell breaks loose. The wind's howling, the rain's cutting you like a knife in the face. And the wires are arcing and sparking on the side of the house.

Now here comes more water, pouring down the road. The funny thing is when floods come in and the cars go underwater, all the lights in the cars go on like something from "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" — all the car lights are on, the windshield wipers are going, the horns are blowing.

Jonah Markowitz

After being evicted from emergency housing, Mr. Culleton stayed with friends or slept in his truck outside the local police station.

I see the lights go on in my truck and I say to myself, "That's it."

Now the water's coming up the front steps and we tell the kids and the wife to go upstairs. We say, "Don't worry about it, it looks like the water's going down." The wife turns around and gives this knowing look.

Then the lights in the house go off. The place gets eerie. Like something out of a horror movie. The car lights underwater are the only thing you could see. You wonder, "What the hell's next?"

I'm thinking about my house with no basement down in the low area down by the bay — can't be much left of it. And then I'm thinking about my boat, my livelihood. Not knowing is worse than knowing.

We start smelling smoke and hearing popping noises. We look out the front window toward the east; that's where the wind's coming from. There's a fire coming and looks like it's whipping straight at you — sparks, flames shooting everywhere. We can't figure where anything is. It's just hell. I start calling 911 — that's a waste of time. Better off talking to your shoes. All you get is a recording.

Jonah Markowitz

Mr. Culleton takes a moment to rest at a single room occupancy residence in Rockaway Park.

I realize it's like being in your boat. No one's gonna help you.

So I said maybe we have to try to get the kids out and hopefully the fire don't come. You could see the shock in the wife's face. You could see it but she was hiding it to make the kids not be scared. They're upstairs playing with their Transformer toys.

And the water keeps coming and I'm thinking about the people down south during Hurricane Katrina — how they got caught in their attics and drowned. I think we might need to cut a hole in the roof. We got a cordless saw. But we got no power.

And that's when I look out the window and I see the water joining up — the bay is hooking up with the ocean. The water's all around. It's just like being on a boat at sea. We go upstairs. And finally the water starts going down and we collapse.

The next morning we wake up. Everybody's walking around like zombies. It's not just the loss of property, it's the mental trauma. The unknowing of the future. We go outside and it's a new world. Stuff everywhere. All five blocks around us burned to the ground.

I end up staying at Mike's for two weeks — that's how long it takes me to get my house keys back from the bottom of the basement.

Around that time Mike's next-door neighbor, the only one with a working car, he goes down to the boat yard. And he says, "Hey, I seen your boat. Your boat made it." So I go back home. And I see my boat, the Easy Rider. It made it through O.K.

But my yard's so full of garbage I can't get in the front door of my house. I climb over the neighbor's fence. I see all my equipment is wiped out. I open the other door and a busted pipe blasts me in the face with water. I turn the water off, nail the front door shut and say: "The hell with this place. I gotta get my sanity back."

I been working on fixing the house for a year now. I still can't go home.

James Culleton is a fisherman based in the Rockaways. This account was told to Paul Greenberg, the author of "Four Fish" and the forthcoming "American Catch."

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