Seagate Residents celebrate Sandy survival and rebuilding

senator a special thank you to voldecorn for providing the food tonight tonight we're standing here to thank hashem for the great miracle that occurred here this time last year although we were devastated by hurricane sandy yet barack hashem in our community playing the medal-ish everyone came out alive we're standing at the water we live under the water and we love the water titled inshallah where is cold and compared to water that is also why this event is climaxed by presenting this community with a lucifer toyota we're also here to show our cars appreciation and to thank each and every one that made it possible for the community to get off the ground dust off and rebuild itself we thank you all from the largest donor to the little three-year-old girl in lakewood who touched my heart when we received our one dollar donation and of course the people of baltimore who once again made this long and tiring trip thank you flatbush the upper west side yeshiva university the young men and women from the israeli army all who came to rid our homes of wet muddy and moldy contents we thank all the host families who graciously hosted seagate presidents all the volunteers who brought food the syrian community of ocean parkway all the women who worked tirelessly to provide food and clothing for our community the school children of basiaco the other school children especially those in toronto that adopted a home and see you if you are here you helped someone or perhaps a lot of someone's in this community as one community it really means that you help me as well in the words of my friend hi smil friedman and his family and i quote we may not have it me oh me and we grab the is and we started moving everybody up to the second floor we started hearing electrical circuits um like exams of electric the next thing we know jimmy's not screaming in the radio that a house on us blocked and another house blew up and now there's a possibility this house is going to blow up it was a traumatic evening um the neighborhood and i'm going to start picking people up at the same goals i need you to send me school buses because i need to get these people out they took us out of the gate and the amazing job that sort of did we came out of the gate with three different lines of bosses they asked me boba park williamsburg or flatbush in which one they took and they drove me all the way to my daughter's house while i was walking i find myself closing car doors and some dead animals cats and stuff on the side of the street and it was hard to watch the devastation even just on the street it looked like um sort of brought a sense of numbness over me to the point where i was in utter shack my brother and i were working we're walking from outside of the gate to my father's house we didn't say one word to each other in the basement of the event and somebody make them safe and somehow foreign the best way to to explain the the mood here and the feeling was it it was eerie it was very eerie to walk around before and all he told me was i came back with the command center um since we had cell problems we had to set up some type of communication the border part of them they came out the first night helped us with security there was no police force there we had over 50 guys patrolling the c8 the phone calls just didn't stop coming in from all over the world to help us in a time of i drove down to need the devastation was massive what you saw was not but no matter what we feel no matter what dry goods collecting fans and blowers and humidifiers trying to it wasn't that they needed something they needed everything the first couple of days i was like in the days i couldn't get myself to walk down here to this uh this basement because i was just too hot terrific for days days after frankly it was only the orthodox community that really had a presence here you know you couldn't even get your cell phone charged except at the station that the orthodox community set up and made clear that what they did was for everyone you didn't have to be a member of the whatnot it was meant for the community it was the only presidency with the invitation they took us in wholeheartedly uh some families he came in there and uh first he walked in he's like what could i help and he saw without saying even what was going on so he ran out there and started bringing in food i didn't sing for two weeks always here um the community needed just desperation on their faces and all the classes had been leveled all of the uh there was no rich and no poor no jewish no non-jew and the request for help wasn't no one was looking for a check it was literally they weren't even saying what they wanted help with their faces just simply said help okay i didn't know what's happening not going to have a max if you live in an ice he started crying what who called it so we're going to stay there every what's i found out later a car stops in front of my house and he says do you see that guy pulling a refrigerator out of your basement he's a cardiologist they're pointing i think we show the greater community of mankind how you respond to what another is in need we spent the day there just engaging in in fact we described it as a spark that breaking labor just to clear out some of the debris to allow people a head start on rebuilding their lives i'm sure that you don't even realize what the storm can do to a family that has a lot of other things in their life but the storm really came really really devastate people in a lot of different ways hello we me the wood me wallace me so foreign me i you me is