Disrupted

Once upon a time, I used to live in New York and I've seen the kind of "flooding" that happens when it rains a lot - water coming up over the pedestrian walkway in Bay Ridge (near the Verazano Bridge), flooding in the subways (one day I had to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge to get to my job in lower Manhattan), and even flooding in the streets that came up to the tops of the tires of cars parked in low-lying areas near the South Street Pier.  So it's not "surprising" that NYC couldn't hold back the water from Hurricane Sandy's storm surge.  At the same time, ?!?*?, what just happened?!

Reading about the current situation there - the floodwaters, the lack of power, the destruction.  It makes me almost cry.  And yet I don't cry, probably because I'm "only" reading - while traveling on my warm train on my way to work.  I don't know the people who died or whose homes or businesses were destroyed.  I know the people who lost power and water, but who will be just fine.  I'm far enough removed that it affects me as it affects any person, with perhaps a bit more of a twinge since I recognize the places I see in these pictures.

Right now I sit in a Cosi in the train station in Philadelphia, where I've just finished my (second) breakfast and coffee and I've got a large table to myself where I can spread out my work.  My computer is plugged into an outlet, so power is not even an issue.  I'm watching people eat, talk, and come and go as if their lives weren't disrupted - and maybe they weren't.  As for me, I got two days off from work - is that a disruption?