They say it takes 66 days to create a habit, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that after nine days without power, I am still turning on light switches after Superstorm Sandy.
This is the third storm in fourteen months that has left our area without power for a week or more, in addition to deadly flooding and major tree damage. After the last storm, ours was the house with the generator—the new, must-have appliance in the East—and it helped many in our neighborhood. This time, we are on the receiving end and are grateful we paid it forward. Truthfully, we would have been helped anyway because that is the nature of our neighborhood. The address of the generator we tied into changed each day based on need, blowouts and one miraculous UPS delivery of a generator. There were late night trips to PA to get gas, FedEx shipments by my parents of gas tanks and blessed texts from Don Murphy, owner of NP Fuel, about gas stations with fuel. But, fundamentally we all knew that we would huddle together and make it happen collectively.
There is little to romanticize here. It is cold, the hanging towels in the bathroom do not dry, and the egg section in the supermarket is consistently empty making me think that some families are decorating eggs to distract their little ones from the absence of Halloween, yet again. My father-in-law was taken by ambulance the day after the storm to the hospital where he remains and my mother-in-law is with us.
With school cancelled my kids are underfoot and feel hemmed in, as do I. The collective experience leaves me yelling more than I care to admit. I should be using the time to encourage quality reading, testing for critical thinking skills, and developing their writing capabilities—all things I know employers desire above all else—but the challenges of powering up, gassing up, warming up and cleaning up are all consuming. There are no teaching moments, but as someone whose company is focused on addressing the jobs crisis I do see a silver lining: many people will get jobs.
Mother Nature just served up the equivalent of a WPA (Works Progress Administration) to recover and rebuild from Hurricane Sandy and thankfully we won’t need Congress to approve it. The tradespeople whose livelihoods have suffered in this economy will find their skills in demand for the next few years. Tree services, roofers, carpenters, water remediation specialists, plumbers, electricians, etc. will be in demand throughout New York/New Jersey especially. People can make extra money by renting rooms to trades people from other parts of the country who temporarily relocate here, etc.
The challenge will be connecting those who need services with those who can deliver them. To solve that, CareerFuel has launched a community. By signing up, you can post your “Ask” (need a tree guy now) or your “Give” (insured roofer available this week) to make things happen.
If you want to be helpful, please pass this along to others. There are millions of people in need and CareerFuel can be one place that connects the needs with the workers to get America working again. photo credit: Pam_Andrade via photopin cc
Watch and learn about Southeastern Outdoor Services– an Alabama-based company that came to the rescue after Sandy. Interested in this kind of work? Read how Dan Dostal got his business off the ground.
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