UPDATE: (Dec. 19, 2012) I just posted the final cut of my video. It took a few rounds of editing and work-shopping, so I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I did making it. And a special thanks to Dawn Lavigne and the Heaney family of Staten Island, who were beyond accommodating even while trying to get their lives back in order.
ORIGINAL POST: I’m taking a class on web video production at Columbia J-School that began only a few weeks before Superstorm Sandy came into town and really messed things up for a lot of people. I headed out to see the wreckage myself a week later in Staten Island’s Midland Beach, where the body count was the highest. I got there maybe a week after the storm did its damage. I took an express bus from downtown Manhattan to Hylan Boulevard in Staten Island and I walked down the road to an intermediate school that doubled as a clothing distribution center. I saw military-style helicopters hover overhead and FEMA trucks barrel down Midland Avenue. I met Mike Heaney outside his gutted one-story bungalow, which he shared with his mother. Mike and his mom now belong to the thousands of New Yorkers displaced by the storm. They’ve been staying with Mike’s sister in a condo in New Dorp along with other relatives. I’m going to follow them through the rebuilding process, with all its red tape and frustrations, and document it here:
https://rebuilding-midland-beach.jux.com/
I’ll post more updates on this site, but the entire project will be up on that site. — JM