By Madina Toure
Although it has been three years since Hurricane Sandy, volunteer Marissa Bernowitz said a number of issues remain, including homes that need repair, disaster management and empty lots.
Bernowitz, 28, became a disaster relief volunteer coordinator, helping her Rockaway Beach community after the superstorm destroyed parts of the peninsula. When the hurricane hit in October 2012, she lost her home, a two-story winterized bungalow on Beach 111th Street and Rockaway Beach Boulevard, where she lived with her sons.
She is now living a few blocks down in an apartment building.
“We were on a generator for about a year,” she said. “But I lost my apartment, two cars, my job and maybe three days after Sandy I said, ‘If nobody’s going to come out, we’re going to start using my social media and my networking.”
She and her sons ended up living with her mother, her stepfather, her four siblings and her nephew in her mother’s apartment building, which is in front of her bungalow court, for more than a year and a half. She and her mother had the same landlord as they are part of the same property, but her mother’s apartment had less damage than hers, because it is on a higher floor.
Since then, Bernowitz has started the Free Flea Market, served voluntarily as the Head Elf of Queens for the Secret Sandy Claus Project and is a full-time volunteer board member at We Care New York Inc., where she oversees relief effort in Queens and other places.
Disaster case management agencies have been closing due to funding issues and the belief that there is not a need for aid, she said.
“Right after Sandy, they were overworked …and there was funding available and programs available for families that were recovering,” she said. “The majority of those agencies have since phased out their disaster case management programs.”
Three years after the storm, many people are still doubling or tripling up, staying with families to avoid living in a shelter, she said.
“On Front Street it might look great, but if you look at side streets, there are homes that are still tilted over,” she said.
Her 15-year-old brother was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and became agoraphobic following the hurricane, unable to go to school and leave his house or even his room.
Her family ended up getting help for her brother from Doctors of the World USA, a free clinic set up in the Rockaways.
“He hasn’t been to school since Hurricane Sandy and it’s something that’s not discussed,” she said.
When Sandy hit, the city opened up Section 8 housing for Sandy survivors through the Temporary Disaster Assistance Relief program, a Build it Back renters program.
We Care New York is currently dealing with families who live in shelters through the city Department of Homeless Services system.
“At We Care, we have anywhere from 15 to 20 families that are sitting in shelters actively looking for an apartment or gainful employment to be able to get back on their own feet because their homes were destroyed,” she said.
The organization is the official on-the-ground partner for the Marines Toys for Tots program, which targets disaster-affected areas and low-income families in general.
We Care also hopes to further develop its free summer program, Fun in the Sun, and Bernowitz plans to open a food pantry in the 11694 zip code area, which covers Rockaway Park.
The business landscape of the Rockaways has also changed. She said that some new businesses and business owners have taken up the strip from Beach 86th to Beach 98th streets.
But she noted that from Beach 113th to Beach 115th streets, there is a huge empty lot that used to be occupied by businesses and had apartments above and behind them.
“Nobody wants to touch it,” she said.
She also said that bungalow communities on Beach 111th and Beach 112th streets were washed out by the hurricane.
But she stressed that the hurricane has helped foster a stronger sense of community.
She said that she and the four other women who started the Free Flea Market did not know each other before the hurricane hit, even though they lived in the same area.
“Sandy brought that friendship together,” she said.
Reach reporter Madina Toure by e-mail at mtour
