We decided to come home from Fishkill late last night. Joe had to work today, and we figured it was better to just get it over with, and see what we were faced with. Surprisingly, when we arrived, the streets were mostly dry. The beach and boardwalk outside our apartment building were pretty beat up, being that the waters were chest deep earlier Sunday morning. Luckily the tide rolled out, and the waters subsided substantially. We walked in to the building and it really stunk in the lobby. You could tell that the water had made its way into the lobby area by the sand and almost mildewy, old basement sort of smell that hit you as soon as you opened the door to the foyer. We opened our apartment door, and there was minimal water damage in the kitchen and living room. There were bubbles in the paint that still have water in them, and the walls look like old wrinkly skin. The bedroom is where most of the damage was. In the past, when it rained SUPER hard, or during any other kind of "tropical storm" type of situation, we have gotten water damage. We are a brick building facing ocean front, so there has to be brick maintenance every so often, or the salt water starts to eat at the brick, causing areas where water can penetrate and damage certain apartment's walls, ceilings, light fixtures, etc. Our apartment is a corner apartment, which faces the ocean AND street side, so we are part of that cluster of apartments that get it the worst, called the "C-Line". The C Line on floors 1-6 were pretty damaged, but the 5th floor seems to be the worst so far. Our ceiling fan was full of water, the ceiling was full of water bubbles, the walls wrinkly, and the bed had GIANT puddles of brown water on them. Luckily, we prepared the bed by cutting up large trash bags and using them as protective tarps to cover the mattress and bedding. That would have been disastrous if we hadn't because we literally recovered about a third of a bucket full of brown water that would have destroyed our mattress. The water was stinky, and smelled like an old basement and kind of rusty....weird. We also prepared by moving most of our clothing out of the closet, but the remainder was wet, so the water made its way through the closets too. We took a lot of pictures of the damage, so we can present them to the co-op board, and the building will pay for the repairs (hopefully). Not sure about how much damage we sustained financially, but luckily it's all paint and drywall, and nothing structural. When Bloomberg ordered the mandatory evacuation and said the mass transit would be closing, this was UNHEARD of in the 5 Boroughs of NYC. Not even on September 11th did the subways close and people were ordered to evacuate their homes. It was scary, and we expected MUCH worse. Luckily it was minimal compared to what we expected, and we are happy to be home...
I have SO much to do before leaving on Thursday morning. I have to clean up my mess of an apartment, do a lot of laundry and dry cleaning etc, dye and strass a new pair of shoes for Lauren's wedding (since I sold the crystal Very Prive to Ice), have them resoled so I don't fall on my face on the dance floor, and get my hair colored before I leave....SO much to do, and so little time.
Gotta turn these...
Into THESE....
