I started this post last night…and then the lights went out. No lights. No water. No Lonnie. We were at high tide, high surge, and Lonnie had said it was approaching 13 feet. The city had never seen anything like it. Lonnie had never seen anything like it. He had thrown his hands in the air in dismay and then… I ventured out to see the extent of the surge. It couldn’t be that bad. These guys were always so dramatic. The city was dark, that was true, no streetlights or lights from the buildings. Police cars and Con Edison trucks drifted past, one policeman yelling at a van driver, “Turn your fucking lights on!” Other than that, it was quiet. No sirens, just the sound of a distant generator and the wind coming up…and then the smell of something burning and smoke…coming from the subway station for the ‘1’ line at Wall Street. It was coming out of the R station at Whitehall too, two blocks away. And then I ran into the water getting closer to Battery Park.

It was worse outside the park at the Staten Island Terminal.

The wind picked up and whitecaps rolled up the streets to the little asphalt shoreline, all of the zombie storm watchers staring sadly at the floating wood and debris bobbing to the sidewalk. It was time to go home. I walked up the 13 flights and waited in the dark.