Local men go to help of storm survivors

Local men go to help of storm survivors

7 November 2012

A GROUP of Down men have been involved in helping some of the thousands of people left homeless in New York after Hurricane Sandy.

Aidan Lundy, from Newcastle, Liam Murray from Drumnaquoile, Tommy McConvey from Ardglass, Francie Treanor from Castlewellan and Eugene O’Hagan from Hilltown all survived last week’s hurricane in the Queen’s district of the city.

Struck by the suffering of the residents of the Rockaway Peninsula nearby, who suffered the full brunt of the hurricane, they collected money and goods from the Irish communities in Sunnyside and Maspeth and went to try to help.

Aidan, who has spent the last six years living in New York and works as a bar tender, explained that within hours they had raised $1,700 and more in donated goods.

“Overall we were very lucky, a few blocks away got it very bad,” he said.

“I have friends living in the area, so I spoke to Tommy and Francie and Eugene had a van and we collected $1,700 in about an hour-and-a-half.

“Eugene queued on Saturday morning for three-and-a-half hours for petrol and went to a shop, the equivalent of Macro back home, and started filling up the van.

“We got gallons and gallons of milk, toilet roll, kitchen roll, cleaning products, soup, any kind of tinned food.”

Their friend Liam Murray was a 15 minute drive away and Aidan said they were shocked by some of the scenes they witnessed.

“Rockaway is an Irish area and Liam had a lot of damage done to his house,” said Aidan. “He had also just finished working on his house a few weeks ago. The basement floor is ruined by water and it went into the first floor. A couple of cars were also lost there.

“You would not believe the devastation. Houses in the block behind Liam are not there anymore.”

Despite the wreckage of Hurricane Sandy, which has killed at least 160 people across the US, Aidan said local communities were pulling together.

“A pizza van pulled up and started giving away a load of pizzas, for example,” he said. “People have pulled together the best they can.

“We were supposed to have Hurricane Irene last year in New York and nothing happened so I think nobody really took it seriously.”

Liam added: “I live in Rockaway Beach so it’s hard not to help people. We are all in it over here. Every basement has had to be gutted as water got to the top of the ceilings and some people have water of two feet on the first floor.

“We can’t get to our basement as the water level is still high so for the last week me and Sean my brother have been helping in houses we can get to.

“Five blocks up the street 15 houses burnt down, almost the whole block.

“At Breezy Point (known locally as the Irish Riviera) 82 houses burned down so water in the basement is not a big deal,” he said.