By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk
Hurricane Sandy whipped through the East Coast Monday night and left us with an enormous amount of destruction that we are now still trying to come to grips with. I live in Rochester, New York, where we normally are way enough inland from the coast to be protected from these types of storms. But Sandy was nothing that we've ever experienced before which has been felt all the way to Wisconsin!
We all survived the storm fine here with just a few downed trees and some power outages. Those that live right along the shore of Lake Ontario were told to evacuate because of high waves. At the office we experienced a little bit of Internet troubles yesterday morning. But all is back to normal and Halloween will go on tonight along with a rescheduled Bruce Springsteen concert that was originally planned for Tuesday night.
The story of Hurricane Sandy has largely been being told by the people that actually experienced it and in real time, not just through the professional news media. The story has been unfolding mostly through photos being shared on various social media sites. When you look at these photos it is so hard to believe you're looking at New York City and what was the Jersey Shore. Some friends and I celebrated our graduation from high school many summers ago in Seaside Heights, NJ, on what was this pier and amusement park.
One winner to emerge from this mess appears to be Instagram, the popularphotosharing app.It was reported that during the storm Instagram rececived 10 photos a second. According to Kevin Systrom, Instagram founder, more than 244,000 photos had been posted to Instagram by end of Tuesday with the hashtag #sandy, and 144,000 more under #hurricanesandy and another 23,000 photos under #frankenstorm.
A pair of developers from the New York Times and Facebook have created this site, instacane.com which is a landing page for Instagram photos related to the storm. So you can view their Story of Sandy here. Of course there are some posted photos that are fake and have been "Photoshopped". There were no snarks swimming down the streets in Atlantic City!
I posted this photo on Facebook Monday that I grabbed off of Flickr of the Times Square MTA Subway station before the storm after all trains had been shut down Sunday night. It's pretty eerie. Another photo I saw last night was of the promenade in Grand Central Station completely empty. Also very eerie.
Some of the most devastating photos I think are of the fire in Queens that they now say destroyed over 80 homes in this neighborhood. This photo here helps to put it in perspective.
So my thoughts and prayers go out to all the families who's lives have been drastically changed so quickly. It is amazing we haven't had more deaths. So for that we are grateful.
Oh and by the way, don't forget it is Halloween. Some communities won't be able to celebrate it at all tonight.If yours is celebrating please stay safe.
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