Grace Deal has troubling sleeping at night. In her dreams, Deal, 52, said she can still see the waves from Hurricane Joaquin crashing toward her. She said since Joaquin, she's suffered from panic attacks, nightmares and has had to seek counseling to deal with it.
"I am a single parent and during 2005 when my son went to college in New Orleans, [Hurricane] Katrina came two weeks after he got there and he lost everything," said the mother of two. "He was saved, thank God, but it was a traumatic experience during that time. Now this time for me, losing everything in my home, it caused me to have panic attacks."
The Guardian spoke with Deal last Thursday following a town hall meeting in North Long Island. During the meeting, Deal, filled with grief, broke into tears.
"I live opposite Deals Beach and the sea came about a half mile in the back of my house," she said. "I stayed with my neighbor, just a few feet from my house. When I looked through the window, I knew then that I had lost everything because she is further back from me and the sea was just under her hill where she lives. So I knew then what I had to face when I got back home. When I went home, the front door came off in my hand.
"When I walked in, it was ankle deep water. I have carpet in my house. In the area what was tiled, there was this stink black mud. I nearly fell in it. When I got in the kitchen, I knew I was faced with total destruction, because my carpet was blue and seeing the destruction, I cant stand to see the color blue."
Deal, who has lived in Deals all her life, said she lost everything.
"I thank God that I was alive," she said. "I thank him for saving my life, but I'm human. I've been working for the Post Office Department for the last 36 years and when you see every cent that you've saved to furnish your home and build your home just wash away, I was having nightmares because they couldn't turn my power on because the way the water had settled."
Joaquin destroyed hundreds of homes on Long Island. It sat over the island on October 1 and 2 and lashed it with 140-mile-per-hour winds and dangerous sea surges. Residents on the island are starting to rebuild in the storm's aftermath. Deal said she stayed on Long Island for as long as she could.
"I stayed on the island until the Island Link came the following week," she said. "I couldn't take it anymore. I went to Nassau just to get away. I'm not ashamed to say that I had to seek counseling because I was traumatized. I couldn't sleep.
"I kept seeing the sea coming towards my neighbor's house where I rode the storm out. I see the water and how the sea was raging. I have a lot of flashbacks from the stink scent. I can't get the scent out of my head."
Deal is thankful to be alive though, despite the difficulties she has faced. She returned to Long Island to clean her home out and move forward with her life. She plans to rip up her carpet and tile her home. Once she does that she plans to visit her children in the United States and try to put Joaquin behind her.
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