- We sat there, we had a Hurricane Irene party, you know,
and it was like not even a hurricane, you know?
It blew pretty hard, we were at my buddy's house,
you know, having beers and everything.
So then, that kind of, I guess like saturated us
with all sorts of, you know the idea,
that this is what they're gonna tell us.
This is how bad it's gonna be.
So, then the same thing with that and everybody at work,
and I work in Brooklyn in the firehouse.
And everybody in Brooklyn knows our neighborhood
down here in Breezy Point.
You know, they always laugh, and turn their noses
at how we're a crazy beach community.
I was working that Sunday night before the storm,
which I guess you could say, it was Sunday into Monday,
and they're like, "Are you leavin'?"
I was like, No way. This is gonna be awesome.
We're gonna have a party.
So then I went back and,
you know, whatever, we did the same thing,
but then it started gettin' bigger, and bigger, and bigger
to the point where, like,
holy shit, this is a real storm.
(strong wind blowing)
- Well, fortunately I went up to take the air conditioner
out of the window on the second floor on a whim,
and I happened to see the water,
otherwise I would've been trapped by the flood water,
and separated from my family.
So, I was able to throw a few things in a bag.
Shut the power in my own home as a precaution,
because I knew, you know, inevitably
we were gonna get flooded.
I'm 41 years old, it's never happened before.
It's never come up that high,
so I knew we were in for a rough night.
But what was to come next certainly is something that
none of us could have ever prepared for.
- [Voiceover] KLG642 Rockaway Point Rescue.
Be advised Mayor Bloomberg has issued
a mandatory evacuation for Rockaway.
I repeat, the mayor has issued
a mandatory evacuation for the Rockaway.
- [Voiceover] Fuck it.
(Romani music)
(slow, haunting viola and piano)
(slow, haunting instrumental music)
(police sirens blare in background over music)
(speaking Italian)
- Excuse me!
East? Which way is east?
- Just take any street that way.
- [Lost man] This way?
- Yeah, just straight. - [Lost Man] Thank you.
(speaks Italian)
- Sandy?
It's Dan.
Yeah, I'm on the Upper West Side.
Well, there's no power down where I am,
so I had to come up here to make some calls and.
I would, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, of course I do.
Sure. Five minutes?
Great.
I'm lookin' forward to it.
(upbeat, fast instrumental music)
(music drowns out voices)
(speaking Italian over sounds of music)
- And then she said it again,
"What's your name?"
And I froze.
I had become the little bits of pulverized ice
blended with coffee.
I was myself what I had ordered.
- Because your name was Sandy?
- Yeah, it was like,
you know your name is so important, like Bond, James Bond,
but it wasn't Bond. It was Sandy.
I have done nothing to deserve this.
(glass breaks loudly in background)
Maybe it is you and not my girlfriend.
- I'm sorry?
- Sandy the storm, not Sandy the woman.
I mean, I don't know, maybe there's hope,
she's not that bad.
What am I talking about?
She's a total bitch.
- You are worse than me.
This is so J.D. Salinger.
- [Dan] Why Salinger?
- I'm big into Salinger right now.
- You like graduate school?
- [Sandy] It's OK.
- Don't you have like a century before you get out
and don't have a job?
- I need the time.
- [Dan] For what?
- To figure out my next move.
- What is your next move?
- Anyway, you know what interests me.
Did you know Salinger was present
at the Battle of the Bulge?
- Really?
- [Sandy] I think it did something to his head.
- Does anybody dispute that?
I mean, the guy's at a major, major battle.
It's gonna do something to him.
- Well, not everyone gives it the same importance I do.
Speaking of the Battle of the Bulge.
That's a good look on you.
- Hey, these yours?
- Yeah, I've written Salinger's initials J.D.S. on each one.
- I see that.
(laughing)
- Was there enough hot water?
- Yeah, yeah.
I love this shampoo,
and I never do that rinse twice thing.
I think it's a scam to get you to use more product.
We should start the Occupy Shampoo Movement.
- Rinse only once.
- Exactly.
A whole line of products.
Cars with capitalists to push them.
(laughing)
(slow instrumental music)
(speaking Italian over sounds of music)
A lot of people have suffered a lot worse
than I did in this storm.
Maybe not.
(Foreign language drowns out speakers)
- Rereading Salinger,
it's a deeply personal experience for me.
- [Voiceover] Hey, strangers.
- Hi.
- Hey.
- [Voiceover] How's it going, Dan?
- How are you?
- Hi, sweetie.
- Hi. - [Dan] Nice to see you.
- Told you we should've gotten a window table.
- Look at you guys together.
- So cute. You guys hangin' out a lot?
That's really great.
- Actually, it's the first time in a long time.
- Hurricane girl? Here she is.
Hurricane girl. - [Sandy] Please don't call
me that.
- That is so exciting.
- I'm gonna take a quick picture.
- No, no, no.
- For Facebook. - [Sandy] No, paparazzi yet
- Don't tag them, but take the picture.
- But we put you guys together, so.
- Yeah, it was our party.
- You know, guess what?
We saw The Master last night.
- So good.
- Excellent, incredible photography.
- Lot of films out right now that are really great.
- Did you get that it was about Scientology?
- I feel like the media is making a big deal about that,
but it's not the key to the film that it's made out to be.
I think you have to be very literal
and see it in terms of Hegel's master-slave dialectic.
You should read Kojeve.
- I love Kojak. He's a detective. He's smart.
- [Patrick] Not Kojak, Kojeve.
Kojeve really focused on the master-slave dialectic
in his lectures on Hegel.
Terrence Malick, of course, is steeped in the
philosophy of Heidegger, and you can see a kind of
Anxiety of Influence, a la Harold Bloom
at work in Anderson's work vis-a-vis Malick's.
Not only in Anderson's iconic camerawork,
which clearly echoes Malick,
but also in their explicit antagonistic
philosophical allegiances.
That's the real wager of the film.
- [Bill] Babe, that's beautiful.
Dave, uh Dan, you've seen The Master, haven't you?
- No, I haven't had the chance to.
- It's really good, it's really good.
- Incredible.
It's really beautiful.
- I think we need a little one-on-one time.
- It was so good to see you guys.
- You too.
- (whispers)
- (laughs) I think so.
That's so weird.
- Excuse me. Por favor.
Can I get a cup of coffee? I mean it's been days.
I mean it's been a lot of days.
- [Voiceover] More than the usual?
Of course, right away.
- I'm still waiting.
- [Voiceover] It's between every two points.
There is another point.
You will never get that cup of coffee.
This is because of Zeno's paradox, not because of me.
- I'd like to talk to this Zeno guy.
- Here and there, downtown.
Tell me more about Salinger.
- [Sandy] What about your work?
- What about it?
- How is it going?
- [Dan] Ah, not so good.
I can't reach anybody.
I think I'm toast.
I was supposed to make sure the Internet didn't go down,
and I'm pretty sure it did.
- [Sandy] What does the company do?
- Luxury evacuations.
- [Sandy] Luxury evacuations?
- This was our big moment, you know.
I'm gonna take off for the evening.
- Is that wise?
- Everything's under control.
- What about the Bhagavad Gita?
- You know about that?
- It was Caroline's idea.
- [Dan] Of course.
- What did you get out of it?
- Don't take advice from your driver.
- [Howard] Seriously, Dan, what did you get out of it?
- That relates to my work?
- [Caroline] Yes.
- Well, let's see,
I should take a chariot to work and not the subway.
- I'm disappointed, Dan.
- Are you really, Howard?
- Yes.
Look, Dan, this can't be just a job for you.
I have to feel that your work
is your bliss.
- My bliss?
- [Caroline] Yes.
Your bliss.
This is not a joke, Dan.
This is the make-or-break disaster for us.
We can either continue to supply the goodies
for the finest luxury evacuations
accommodating the changes in schedule,
making sure their children's favorite candy
is on the private jet.
Providing the best restaurant recommendations,
the sine qua non
of sinful luxury.
And all the time telling them that they deserve it.
That they are without sin,
that it is only we who can sin,
only we who can fail in our service to them.
- Are you certain that our Internet assets are protected?
- I've done everything I can do.
- That's not the Bhagavad Gita.
- Read it, Dan.
- I did.
- Read it again.
- You said you wanted to save money.
I told you we needed to spend more.
I've done what I can do with the budget you gave me.
- Budget is not a word we use in the Bhagavad Gita.
- Exactly.
(strong wind blowing)
No signal.
You never read the Bhagavad Gita.
You little bag of shit.
Goddamnit.
- He's sorry now, or at least he should be.
- [Sandy] Does she have a name?
- Who?
- [Sandy] Your most recent ex.
- She's not my ex.
I don't know.
I mean, yes, I know she has a name.
I know what it is.
I don't want to talk about it.
I mean we get along OK.
Mostly we talk about finance.
Her fiance is this big hedge fund guy.
- [Sandy] Fiance?
- [Dan] It's complicated.
- [Sandy] It sounds complicated.
- [Dan] Hey, do you think that finance
and fiance are related etymologically?
- I don't know. Sounds like they are for your ex.
- You know you're stirring your coffee counterclockwise?
Like the storm.
- Oh my God.
- It's the eye of the hurricane.
- What about it?
- It's very calm.
- You know.
I slept here last night again.
- [Voiceover] It's a lucky thing
you didn't get the coffee yet.
- How?
- [Voiceover] Coffee would've kept you awake.
- You know,
that's true.
- [Dan] I just remembered I had this dream last night.
I was playing a typewriter in a bathtub.
- [Sandy] That must've had to do with your work.
- [Dan] Right, because in the next scene
there was the beautiful V.P. of Marketing, Caroline,
from the office.
- [Sandy] What was she doing?
- [Dan] She was folding sheets
and asking me what color they were.
- [Sandy] What color were they?
- [Dan] Blue.
- [Sandy] Interesting. Go on.
- [Dan] I was walking around where Sandy had hit.
I was in a hurry, but I could only move very slowly.
I was scared,
but I kept telling myself it was a fashion shoot
for a Christmas catalog,
and that calmed me down.
Then, I couldn't convince myself any longer.
Hey, I said to myself, This can't be a fashion shoot.
Where are the M&Ms? The Snickers Bars? The sushi?
- [Sandy] So, you awoke and thought of me,
because of the hurricane and called me?
- [Dan] It's more complicated than that.
- [Sandy] You live a complicated life.
- [Voiceover] Oh shit,
Hey, Rob, I'm still at the office.
No, I'm fine, just relax.
Yes.
No, no I'll call you as soon as I'm--
Hello?
Rob?
Great, it's dead.
- Why do you lie?
The guy knows you're sleeping with me.
Why don't you just tell him where you are?
- Because he doesn't know that I'm sleeping with you.
- I thought you said he did.
- Just move.
He knows that I'm having sex with you.
- What's the difference?
- There's a big difference.
If he found out that I was spending the night with you,
he would go crazy.
He thinks that you're just a phase that I'm going through,
because I'm nervous about getting married.
- I cannot believe this is your fiance.
- Please, could we not go there right now?
Great.
- Here we go.
- Great, this is what I get for sleeping with a guy
who lives in Alphabet City.
- Well, I got candles.
What's wrong with Alphabet City?
Don't tell me you prefer where he lives.
Jesus, you have to take a car service
just to get groceries over there.
I love this apartment.
You used to, too.
Do you know that every important document
about every important conspiracy theory
is in these file cabinets?
I'm just lucky I got a friend who's willing
to sublet to me for the exact price that he pays.
- This is pointless.
- No! No, this is beautiful.
- No, this is not beautiful.
There's nothing beautiful about not having any light, Dan,
any more than there is about not having any money.
- I want things. I just don't think that you--
- You love me, yeah?
- Yes, I love you as a human being.
- You are gonna marry a guy you don't love.
- No, that's not necessarily true.
- Not necessarily true.
You love his money.
You love his career.
You love the idea of what you think
your life will be together, but you know what?
It's a pipe dream.
- That's not true.
You want to know what a pipe dream is?
I'll tell you what's a pipe dream,
you thinking that this is actually gonna work out between us
- The sex is great, yeah?
- Yes, but this doesn't make sense.
- Stop making sense, Rina.
- You actually think that you're gonna win me over
by quoting the Talking Heads?
- Look out the window.
Look.
- I don't see anything.
- That's the point.
The whole neighborhood's gone dark.
Look, I love you.
You love me?
- As a human being, yeah.
- What?
- I'm sorry, Dan.
- Oh, God, as a human being.
Talk about slim pickins
You know, I'd rather you said,
I love you as a stray dog,
or I love you as a side of bacon.
Jesus, there's nothing lower
than as a human being. (loud crash sounds)
Ah, fuck!
- What happened?
- [Dan] What does it look like? I fell.
- [Sandy] Oh, that's right.
Your gift returning girlfriend was there.
- [Dan] Actually, the first night
I was reading T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.
- [Sandy] Really?
- [Dan] Really.
But when I got to, shantih, shantih, shantih,
I wanted to go to Jivamukti Yoga,
but I realized it'd be closed,
so instead I went to one of the bars
that had stayed open using candles.
So, I just stayed at the bar getting drunk.
- Nice.
- Then I went back to my apartment, tripped and fell.
(laughing)
That's when I realized that I butt dialed you.
- A butt dial?
- Yeah.
- Wow, well that's fate.
- But I hadn't decided if I was gonna
come up here and see you yet.
- Ah, you were resisting the urge?
- So, I fell back asleep and I had that crazy dream.
I woke up.
I was cold. It was dark.
I realized it was,
it's like you say, it was fate.
So, here I am.
Hey,
what if, you know, in the next couple weeks
there's another once in a lifetime hurricane,
and I'm back in the Upper West Side
thinking about the end of World War II?
(speaking foreign language)
- I'm right on the water in Rockaway, 130th St.
To the second floor,
the ocean is, like, literally right there.
And so I thought my day was going down fine.
I had my Jeep.
I took a right around Breezy,
just to see what it was lookin' like.
The ocean was up real far.
Throughout the day, the ocean never even receded.
The bay was lookin' like the ocean on a rough day,
and the ocean would just come in hard.
The wind comin' in real hard on shore.
So, I get back to my apartment about four o'clock,
and I start takin' videos.
I'm takin' like hourly videos,
and uploadin' 'em for people to see.
It was just walls and walls of sand waves
just comin' through like I've never seen before.
Get back to Irene, our D.O.s like,
Oh, maybe, we're just gonna', you know,
still by 4:30, five o'clock.
I was like,
Irene, this could be a little like Irene,
and then once like 5:30 came, six o'clock came,
I was like, I think our shit was screwed.
By that time it was too late to leave,
'cause my car wouldn't work already.
I had the guy in front of me said, George, or somethin',
he's an older guy, he's on a ground floor apartment,
and he wouldn't leave either. He's a stubborn Greek guy.
I was like you have to go.
"No, I stay, I stay."
I was like, You have to go.
I'm not gettin' you out of here. Go.
He's like, "No, I stay."
Finally, we got his daughter on the phone to call up,
and she said, "Get outta her, get outta here."
so his car was completely filled with water as well.
We sort of, we got it out of there, thank God,
and he left, because I'll tell ya--
- Well she was amazing in that.
- I thought she was incredible--
- Hello.
You cutie. - [Sandy] Hey.
- You look cute.
- You are so cute. - [Sandy] Thank you.
- And, how is he?
Yeah.
- What happened?
- I was talking about Salinger.
How's Salinger?
- Salinger.
- Right?
- It's done.
- Sorry.
- Yeah, I can't stop thinking about him.
- I'm sorry, I--
- No, don't worry about it.
- Are there writers that you feel that way about?
- Other than Salinger? - [Bill] Yeah.
- Yeah, Austin, How To Do Things With Words.
- How do you do things with words?
- [Bill] Oh, God.
- [Patrick] Will you take me to be your
lawfully wedded husband?
- Oh, that like really shook me. What? Yes, of course.
I mean yeah, yeah. - [Patrick] Like that.
- I do, I mean. - [Sandy] All right.
- But he's kidding.
- No, I wasn't. - [Bill] It was a joke.
- For me, it's Foucault.
- Foucault.
- It's all about Foucault right now.
Just at this time in my life, and in other people's lives.
I feel like History of Madness is just the tome right now.
- I love him, and the thing about Foucault though,
he writes a lot of fiction, but Foucault wants fiction
that reveals a stroke of truth.
- Bye, guys.
- That's true, no I absolutely - [Patrick] In that way
he's taking us back to Herodotus, the father of history--
- Certainly, everything goes back to him.
- Incredible stories.
- They're not necessarily stories.
- Where'd she go. - [Bill] She's gone.
- Are you coming to the wedding?
- I don't know.
- It's about real estate, you know.
- What?
- It's about real estate, not stocks.
You know, they ran over an old woman
on the same street where that guy got bumped off last week,
except he got all the press, all the headlines.
- Why's that?
- Because she was killed at the construction site
of a major developer.
You should come.
- Maybe.
- Gotta go.
(phone rings)
- Hi.
- [Dan] Hey.
Listen, I just broke up with her. It's over.
- Fuck you.
- [Dan] But--
- You just take. You don't give.
- [Dan] You've never seen my collection of conspiracy stuff.
- What?
- [Dan] It's not mine, but it's in my apartment.
The one my friend is letting me sublet.
None of it's on computer. - [Sandy] What?
- [Dan] It's all in file cabinets.
Do you know what file cabinets are?
You're probably too young.
- What?
- [Dan] And my friend married a girl in Pakistan.
He's probably dead. We can stay here forever.
- You didn't call me. I thought it was over.
You come up here and--
- [Dan] You can come down here now.
- I don't wanna come down there.
- [Dan] What?
- You took advantage of me, Dan.
- [Dan] What?
- I was vulnerable.
- [Dan] What? I was the vulnerable one.
- You hide me.
You never even took me to dinner.
- [Dan] We were at a Greek diner together.
- What? I'm not gonna get dressed up to go to a Greek diner.
- [Dan] Listen, don't let this moment pass.
This is our big--
(lively Romani music)
- I got my coffee.
- I see that.
- You play?
- A little.
- No wait.
No! No, no, no.
- What is love?
- Love is a cup of coffee.
If you don't drink it, it gets cold.
There's always iced coffee.
(phone rings)
- Hi.
What's cooking?
What, you think I'm standing at a stove?
- Can I have a menu?
Excuse me, can I--
- I had this Greek friend when I was a kid,
and at his house they didn't have spinach pies.
They had these spinach rolls.
- Did you get fired?
- No.
No.
- OK.
- My boss, Howard, he bought this big house
in Jersey last year, it got totaled in the storm,
so I'm volunteering.
It's my way to get back in his good graces.
- You were only thinking about me.
- Well, it worked out nicely.
- [Voiceover] How'd that party turn out?
- Hey, listen, can I borrow your van day after tomorrow?
- [Voiceover] What for?
- I wanna do some post hurricane volunteer stuff.
- [Voiceover] Well, someone else wanted it,
but I'm really happy to see you show some civic virtue, man.
- Well, I'm a changed person.
- [Voiceover] That's great to hear, no offense intended.
- Hey, none taken.
Let's face it, I was a total dick, but not anymore.
- [Voiceover] What an asshole!
- Excuse me?
- [Voiceover] The old you.
- So, can I borrow it?
- [Voiceover] Sure.
- Thank you.
Dick.
(slow, Romani music)
They don't open for an hour, so--
- Oh.
Want to, ah, drive around?
(slow, somber instrumental music)
(speaking Italian)
(lively instrumental music)
(moaning in background)
- I guess I could just leave it here for a second.
You got everything?
- Yep, all right.
- We got a call at six o'clock from
FDNY that said every truck in Rockaway is leaving.
You're on your own.
- And the bridge was closing at seven,
so if you don't leave by seven.
There was no option to leave.
- No, you definitely--
- There was no way you were gettin' out.
- Where in the clubhouse, water's rushing in,
and it's just, you know no one's comin'.
- Yeah, and with the high winds.
They couldn't even get back over the bridge,
so like, we had a good four hours,
probably more than that when,
that was it, there really was nobody coming.
- Everything was dark.
There were explosions from transformers goin' down,
and you were just on your own.
There was no one comin' to help.
We were the help for everyone.
- Where's the house?
- I almost felt like I was at an advantage
'cause I'm a fireman,
and a disadvantage 'cause I'm a firemen,
'cause I was tolerating' certain things,
where people woulda been like,
Yo, get the fuck out of here.
Then, I remember being at my place
and seeing embers coming,
there must've been a window open.
I don't even know where that window was,
but seeing embers laying on my soakin' wet rug,
because the tide had receded at that point,
and I was like stompin', and it was like,
Shit, the whole house will burn down.
Then, just seein' it come, come, come real close,
and I was like, let me pack a bag,
and I had this huge, awesome bag
that the Marine Corps gave me.
I remember some Staff Sergeant tried to steal it from me,
'cause, I don't know, they were givin' it to guys that were
in Fallujah 2006, whatever it was,
but this thing was perfect.
And our buddy even priced the thing,
that thing was worth like 600 bucks,
so I take that, put it on the table.
Start packin' everything, like jeans,
for some reason the first thing I took
was my jeans, you know.
Right now I'm wearing fucking donated jeans, skinny jeans.
This is my opportunity to wear fuckin' skinny clothes.
So, I'm packin' that, and then I'm gettin' greedy,
and it's comin', and I'm thinkin' like you know,
you can't take it with ya, you can't take it with ya,
but this was before, like, the wall of fire
had really approached, but so I got my jeans,
I got my laptop in there.
I start sayin', Oh, let me get my taxes.
I climb up to my fuckin' attic.
The only thing that really bothers me that I lost
was some videotapes from Iraq,
and the two trips to Costa Rica.
You know, and I always wanted,
my idea was after a few years,
splice it all into a sort of awesome video.
So, I had that, and then it was gettin' real close,
I saw my buddy, Paddy Mullaney.
He's on Gotham Walk. I'm on Hudson,
and Paddy's got a big two story house,
and I see that on fire.
And I'm all, Holy shit, Paddy's house is on fire.
So, you figure as a normal fire goes,
you got anywhere from ten to thirty minutes
before a whole house burns up, you know?
So, I'm kinda, judging it off that,
and then so, I'm still packin',
and like I said, gettin' real greedy.
Grabbin' shit like my taxes,
and like the videotapes,
and there was pictures.
I had a huge box of pictures, and all like,
you can't leave this, right?
And just stuffin' shit in there,
and then Paddy's house was a freakin' blowtorch.
And then all of a sudden, right across the street,
we got Chet Jakubowski.
He had this classic summer bungalow.
Once that was on fire it was like, Holy shit!
And that was just like a matchbook, you know?
That went, and then all of a sudden,
my four windows just vented,
it's like when they just pop.
And I was actually talkin' to my dad yesterday,
and it was probably because the roof was on fire.
I didn't realize it at that point,
and that just creates so much heat,
and the windows just go.
And I was like, Holy shit,
and I've only seen that twice in the fire department,
where the windows vent,
and that's like where it's super-duper hot.
I turned around, I was lookin' for my bag,
and I couldn't find the bag.
It just went from,
I got this bag filled with everything
that's important to me,
to do you want to live, you know?
And almost like a coward's response how I really felt,
because then I had to, I knew my exit was blocked,
because my refrigerator got turned up with the water,
and I had this tiny little hallway to get to the back,
so I knew I had to go over the refrigerator,
and I knew this bag was huge.
It's like, how the fuck you gonna get this thing
over the refrigerator?
How you gonna get through the window?
And I was just like, yo, I gotta go,
and I just jumped, and even goin' through the window,
I was like, you fucked up, you had everything you needed,
but you took too much time,
but it was
that coward response, you know?
Where you're just like a dog runnin' out of a fire.
I just went through that window,
and then ran, and like the whole time I'm runnin'
down the backtrack with these sand lanes,
like to the main area where the parking lot is.
I turned around still with the intent of goin' back,
like a fighter, I just kinda got knocked out,
but I wanted to go back to fight,
but then I saw my house was engulfed,
and I was like, there's no way you're goin' back there.
- Excuse me.
- Yeah.
- All right, which way?
- I think it's down this way.
- This way?
- [Dan] Yeah.
- 7:30, 8:00, we lost power,
but I had my truck light, my fireman light,
and the waves just keep comin', smashin' , smashin',
all of a sudden, I'm like lookin' down
and I see this huge piece of boardwalk.
I see it from like 50 yards away.
I'm like no way, is this comin'?
I'm thinkin' it's gonna go past that way,
but it came flyin' down,
it was goin' like 50 miles per hour.
I was watchin' like, holy shit, holy shit,
and boom! It took out the beach wall,
and smashed into the guy George's apartment.
Obliterated it, like totally gone.
I looked to the left of me.
There's more water goin' through there,
another board piece of walk,
slammed through that apartment, ruined that apartment.
Right through the front window as well.
Then I was goin', Oh my God, now it's like,
what's comin' next?
I thought it was, like, I can't go out like this,
so I'm on my balcony tryin' to say,
if this thing comes down,
you know, I could jump off quick,
or you know,
I don't want to be stuck in the building
as it's gonna get pancaked down,
so the majority from that, from like 9:15, 9:30 til like 11,
I stayed outside, hoping that that building wouldn't come.
Sure enough we didn't come down, thank God, obviously.
And that was it, I was just watching that storm,
you know, 14 foot waves smashin' through my building.
For like two hours, thinkin' like, Holy cow, fuck, man.
Irene played me, I should be outta here.
- There's a house behind this one,
that he went up to us and he said,
"The woman that lives there, her husband died in 9/11.
You know, if you could do anything to save that house."
And we went over there,
and the house behind it, and next to it, was on fire.
And we put those out, and actually saved that house.
The siding was all melted, it was about to go any minute,
and we successfully saved that.
You can see right here, the siding melted on the house.
These were all about to go.
You know, we stopped it from spreading.
We saved property.
If there was anyone in the houses near that,
you know, we saved them.
- At approximately 8:15, or thereabout,
I became aware of a heavy odor of smoke,
which, I'm a professional firefighter,
so I knew it was a structural fire.
I knew it was something of significance.
It was just difficult to locate.
Everything was pitch dark. The power had gone out.
Place was flooded.
One of the people I was staying with,
all of a sudden saw a glow on the horizon,
and once I became aware of that,
I realized this was a bigger problem than the flood.
In an attempt to get some help,
I tried to call 911.
I tried to call the fire department dispatcher.
The cell phones weren't workin'.
One thing that was working, ironically,
was Facebook on the iPad,
so I put a message out on Facebook
with some pertinent information,
and a direct phone number to the fire department,
to call and notify them that there was in fact
a large fire in a tightly clustered area
of private dwellings.
So, about 45 minutes passed,
and I knew it was time to go and do something.
I had the camera, it was an underwater digital camera,
and I knew if anything happened they'd find me in the water,
and hopefully at least see what I was doin'.
And I tied that to my wrist,
and I was able to make my way over
in the height of the storm basically.
At points I had to swim.
I couldn't touch the sidewalk.
As I got closer to the fire,
it was painstaking to get over there,
but much to my horror,
I realized that my own home was gonna be
compromised by this fire.
To what degree, I didn't know, but I kept goin'.
This was midway through Gotham Walk.
(fire burning and crackling)
- [Voiceover] This is Breezy Point during the hurricane.
No FDNY, no volunteers for well over an hour.
We got like a third alarm goin' here.
- This is approximately 9:45
on the night of October 29th, 2012.
You know reality hits people pretty quick,
but it hits people in the emergency service profession
a little quicker.
I knew that this was bad,
and I knew it was gonna get worse before it got better.
- [Voiceover] We are in serious fuckin' trouble here.
- [Firefighter Burke] When I got to my block,
numerous neighbors were still present.
They weren't sure what to do, or where to go,
so I was able to assist them,
and, you know, removing themselves from the property,
and getting to a more safe area
out of the direct line of the fire.
- [Voiceover] Watch what your doin' guys,
watch what your doin'.
- [Firefighter Burke] You know,
the way the storm was moving,
it was just beyond explanation,
because if you were ten feet to the left, or right,
of that flue, of where the fire was extending and the smoke,
and, you know, people say, embers,
but you really couldn't appreciate it unless you were there.
It was really debris.
It was like pieces of debris the size of softballs,
or cantaloupes.
The only way I can describe it,
it was like somebody had a Gatling gun with tracer rounds,
and it was completely out of control.
And stuff was pinging off of every other house.
It was just chaos. It was chaos.
(fire burning and crackling)
You know, what I was witnessing
was something on a scale which I could never
have imagined being involved in
in a major metropolitan city.
I'm a lifelong emergency service professional.
I've been involved with the fire service since a young age,
with the volunteer fire service in my neighborhood,
and this is, you know, as fires go,
this is definitely the largest residential fire,
probably since the Civil War in New York City.
(fire burns and crackles)
(radio chatter in background)
(radio chatter in background)
As I traversed the deck,
and I go down towards the front of the home,
at some point the camera shakes,
and you actually hear me say,
"Watch my clothes,"
but you'll see all the debris comin' at me.
If the other two people weren't there,
and weren't screamin' "Let's go,"
I might have kept goin' and, you know.
It doesn't seem like much,
but a few more feet
and we could've had a different outcome.
(fire burning and crackling)
- [Voiceover] Watch my clothes.
It was that point I realized
my jacket was actually on fire.
I had a rope in the pocket,
so that prevented me from physically gettin'
burned on my hip,
but the jacket started to curl up and melt and, you know,
it was time to go.
It was almost like this thing was reachin' out
and tellin' me not to go any further
by throwin' all that stuff at me,
'cause I was right at the front of that house.
Started goin' back towards my own home.
We took a garden hose.
I tried to use that to protect the homes around my own,
my neighbors and myself.
This photo here is my house.
It's the last photo I have of my home.
You're lookin' at these from a distance,
as I had to flee the area.
There was nothing we could do.
The few belongings that I was able to gather up
out of my home before it was incinerated.
I had to bring them back to where I knew they'd be safe,
and I also had to go back and let our family know,
you know, my family know that I was OK,
but the house, of course, was gone.
So, I did that, and then I said, you know,
I can't sit here, and I went back.
- [Voiceover] My house. Gone. The whole neighborhood. Gone.
- [Firefighter Burke] They hydrant systems were compromised
due to lack of pressure,
and that was probably due to all the homes
that were knocked off their axis, you know,
the water pressure was lowered,
because all the water services were
spewing out into nowhere.
But the fire department used a technique called drafting,
where it's basically instead of receiving water
from a fire hydrant under pressure there, you know,
taking water from a water source, which was the sea water.
- [Sandy] I should go into real estate.
That's my next big move.
- I didn't think you were gonna say
this reminds you of some World War II battlefield.
- See if we don't have anything,
any books left over there.
- Ah, the books was the loss.
The books was the loss, that's for sure.
- It's a good thing you didn't take
your mother's entire collection of books then.
- Yeah, I just--
- But she was upset.
That's the first things she said--
- Ah, the books, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Ah, man.
- You know, she was so happy to give 'em to me,
and I tell ya, I actually read 'em, you know?
- I know.
- Somebody would mention one author,
and I'd be like, Got him right on the shelf.
Boom, pull out, that chick, uh, Leonard,
She was a big Homer fan for some odd reason.
- Oh, OK. - [Other Man] Oh, Maggie?
- And I the first night we're hangin' out here,
I was like, Oh, I have Homer right here on the shelf.
Pulled it out, said, I love The Iliad.
- [Sandy] Yeah, that, somewhere else too.
- [Dan] Where?
- [Sandy] I don't know.
I mean, I know the place, but.
Can't think of what it is.
- It'll come to you.
Well, there's your tennis racket.
(lively Romani music)
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