Remzi Fetahu Professor Lago English 1100 7,November,2013

Fetahu 1

August 28 ,2011 wasnt really an average summer day for most people in New Jersey. With a ton of rainfall the night before, and excruciating high winds up to 115 miles per hour, it was too soon for it to be all over. Hurricane Irene had just passed over Jersey that night. Some would call it a hurricane, others a relief, but for the ones who were affected by it like my family, it was a total nightmare. Evacuation definitely plays a huge role when dealing with severe hurricane flooding. Mandatory evacuation was for nearly one million visitors and residents the morning after Hurricane Irene. While many people evacuated, many others did not. As for my father and I, the only ones at the house at the time, we didnt. Studies shown from PMC Library of Medicine have State that those who have lived through previous hurricanes without major harm are less likely to evacuate, as are those who believe that his or her home is not in a high-risk location for hurricane damage or that the storm is not severe enough to warrant evacuation. Over the years that we lived in Fairfield, we never had to evacuate. Fairfield may

Fetahu 2 be a town were a lot of flooding occurs, and familys do evacuate, but we never did. Without any hesitation we began to remove all the furniture from the basement and bring it up to the living room. As we were moving everything we realized that the water from the street was moving quickly toward our house. There was no escaping this. My biggest fear was loosing our house and everything in it. My neighbors rushed over trying to help us move everything, but we knew there was no time. Police in rowboats came up and down the street telling us that we would have to leave immediately. My father refused to leave, as did the other neighbors around. They warned us that they would not come back after 6 p.m. because the power would most likely be out and it would be too dangerous. At this point we knew there was no way out and every hour led to a darker and colder night. My father and I were so focused on everything that could be destroyed in the house that we put on our own lives in danger. CNN Officials stated, Emergency officials report at least 56 people in nine states have died as a result of Hurricane Irene. Drowning killed majority of the people. Even after the flooding eventually settled, and everything was coming to an end, it was far from it. A health issue arose for my father and I. We started to develop a small rash on the bottom of our feet, which was very odd. Overtime the rash spread quickly and