Hurricane Sandy: Queens 9-Year-Old Has Seen “Way Worse”

Our apologies for our two-day absence. We were holed up in an apartment in an “evacuation zone” in Long Island City that, as it turns out, we probably should have evacuated.

We’ve since escaped to the (umm) safety (?) of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, after the floodwaters receded in LIC, and Con Ed was yet to restore power to the apartment in which we were stranded for the duration of the storm.

While we were there, however, we met a (roughly) nine-year-old Queens boy who claims he has seen “way worse” than the devastation brought on by that bitch Sandy — and he told us about it after diving right into the roughly three feet of water that was in the stairwell of the apartment building in which we were trapped.

Just to be clear, there’s absolutely no way in hell this kid has seen anything close to what happened in Long Island City on Monday night; cars were floating down the fucking street — and he’s nine. But the Rambo-esque way in which he said it made us want to believe — he might as well have had a knife between his teeth.

About 9 p.m. Monday, we left our fourth-floor salvation from the storm
to survey the damage down at the river, which is roughly two blocks
away. We only made it to the second floor before we hit a crowd of
people standing in the stairwell.

“Oh, you’re going to the river,” one neighbor condescendingly asled. “Good luck with that.”

“Hardy-har, dickhead — have fun being a coward in the stairwell,” we thought.

It then became clear that we weren’t going to the river — without scuba gear, anyway.

On
the third floor of the building is a communal recreation room, off of
which there is a large balcony that looks over the street on two sides
of the building.

The photo below is what we were dealing with.

We
then went back into the stairwell, which is when the aforementioned nine-year-old came rushing down the stairs in a swimsuit. He then —
without so much as a pause — jumped right into the “water.”

By “water,” we mean green, river sludge that came crashing into the lobby of the apartment at high tide.

“Umm, where are your parents?” was the obvious question.

He
explained that his dad was out of town and that he was staying with his
grandmother, who, apparently, wasn’t against him swimming around in
green, potentially electrified floodwater.

As he walked up the stairs — dripping with the slime in which he willingly submerged himself — he said it: “I’ve seen way worse.”

He then shook his head and walked off — as if preparing himself for his next venture into catastrophic destruction.

Then he ran down the steps and jumped right back in — creating a large splash that nearly clipped our shoe.

We then spent the next two days in the dark, wandering around the postapocalyptic environment that was New York City.

Nine-year-olds
swimming in sludge aside, this storm was no joke. When authorities
tell you to evacuate, and you’re able to evacuate, get the hell out of
town.

Our decision to stick around left us out of commission for two full days. Our apologies.

We’re back in action and ready to provide Voice readers with all the updated hurricane info that we can get our hands on.

Check back for updates.