THE STORM

I'm tired and I'm not fully dried out, yet. I've been home for about four hours and I've showered and changed clothes, but I still feel like I'm soaked through and through. And the storm hasn't even hit us yet. We've just been experiencing the advance effects of Hurricane Floyd all day. We knew it was coming. Thanks to tv and satellite imaging, we saw it spawn in the Atlantic and tear up the Bahamas and tease Florida and finally, today, it made landfall in Cape Fear, NC.

I awoke before the alarm this morning, probably anticipating an early call to go out and cover Floyd. I switched on the tv in my bedroom and flipped through the networks, CNN, the Weather Channel and the local cable news station. They all had scenes of tv reporters standing at some shorelines down south, with the winding whipping up the surf behind them and their hair streaming across their faces. Every station's meteorologist had a different timetable and prediction as to when Floyd would hit NY and how powerful it would be when it got here.

No matter. I've covered every hurricane, Nor'Easter and major snowstorm to pummel Long Island since I started at Newsday 40 years ago. And the one inevitable fact is that I was going to be wet before this day was over. Over coffee I planned my possible scenario. One of the advantages, or maybe disadvantages, of having done this so many times in the past, is that you know what the editors will look for. So, I prepared a script, with the knowledge that if the storm was as powerful as they had predicted, the script would in all likelihood, go down the toilet. I called my desk and was pleasantly surprised to hear the day editor tell me not to go crazy, because the storm wouldn't really hit until sometime tonight. This was unlike him. He usually wants a full effort from the very beginning. I told him what my script was. First I would go to one of the South Shore ferry docks to get residents of the barrier beaches coming over from their fragile and unprotected beach front homes that always faced the full brunt of the stormy Atlantic. Frequently, many of these expensive homes get washed out to sea. Then I would look for homeowners stocking up on food and bottled water and batteries. If the rain persisted, I would check for flooding in low lying areas. Ha! Long Island is as flat as a billiard table. There is no such thing as a high lying area. But, there are areas that are lower than others and always flood whenever there is a heavy rain. And then I would check marinas for boat owners adding extra dock lines to their boats.

The way things were shaping up, my shift would long be over when the full force of the storm hit Long Island. Most of my stuff would never make the paper if the late photographers were able to get some of the dramatic shots of the actual hurricane. But, life do be like that.

©1999 Newsday Photo by Dick Kraus

When I got to the ferry dock, a crew from CBS TV was already there. I passed the time talking about past storms with them until the boat came in. There were some good shots to be had as harried residents of Fire Island came ashore laden with packages, luggage, kids, dogs and whatever they decided to bring with them.

After that, I checked out an area of Sunrise Highway that always floods. (I wrote a journal about how I got a ticket from the gendarmes when I drove past the traffic cones to get a photo during a Nor'Easter, last year.) It wasn't raining so hard and the road wasn't flooded yet. I would return later when the rains started in earnest, and was able to get a shot of cars sloshing through the flooded highway. Then it was time for coffee and a donut at the 7-11 and a chance to read today's paper. After that brief respite, it was off to find a supermarket and some shoppers in the rain.

©1999 Newsday Photo by Dick Kraus

©1999 Newsday Photo by Dick Kraus

Of course, each time I stepped out of the car to make a shot, I became wetter and wetter. And so did my cameras. I try to avoid wearing those rubberized rain suits because you sweat in them. And what's the difference if you get wet from the outside in or the inside out? Wet is wet. And I hate wearing boots because it is a bitch to drive in them. So, I wear high top hiking boots and a water repellent jacket and an old pair of Dockers. That outfit usually keeps me reasonable dry for a couple of hours. Five hours later, I was soaked to the skin. My feet squished in my hiking boots, and my skin was pruney. I had packed a bag with a complete change of clothes and shoes for later so that I wouldn't have to stand around the air conditioned office while I processed my film and scanned my images.

By one PM the winds were starting to gust and the rain came down in sheets for a few minutes and then it would let up for awhile. The radio was saying that the storm had been downgraded to a tropical storm as winds abated. But there was still a lot of rain to contend with. I started back to the office, but decided to check out the small commercial airport near the paper. Maybe they would be tying down the light planes. And then I remembered that the Fuji Blimp had been docked there during the US Open Tennis Matches.

©1999 Newsday Photo by Dick Kraus

The blimp had been flying over the stadium advertising their film products and also providing a platform for airborne tv cameras. Sure enough, when I got to the airport, the blimp was bobbing around on its mooring mast and a ground crew was struggling to make sure that it didn't float off into the storm like some child's escaped balloon. I couldn't get past the chain link fence and onto the field and the crew was working mostly on the other side of the blimp. I held my camera over my head to clear the fence, in the old press photographer's technique known as a "Hail Mary." I guess that infers a prayer to heaven because even though you can't look into the viewfinder and are shooting blind, you pray that you will have what you think you are aiming at squarely on your film when it is processed.

At this point, my camera and lenses were saturated and moisture had gotten between the lens elements and defied all efforts to be dried off. When I could look through my viewfinder, all I could see were blurs and streaks and I had no way of knowing what was caused by water on the outside of the lens, the inside of the lens, the viewfinder optics or my own fogged up eyeglasses.

I drove back to the paper and squished my way into the building. I stopped at the pressroom locker room to change out of my sopping wet clothes. Then I went upstairs and souped my film. God! Had I really shot four rolls of film? And the storm hadn't even arrived here, yet. Geez.

The editor picked eight shots. I scanned them and then went home, tired and damp through and through. Tomorrow morning I am scheduled to fly over LI in a helicopter to record any damage. And then I suppose that I can add another notch on my camera back to denote yet another storm that I had documented.

If they don't use any of my efforts in tomorrow's paper, at least I have small satisfaction of having checked Newsday's web page and I saw 3 of my shots used there.

I'll probably retire one of these days. And then I can sit at home and watch other people record the storm. But, do you know what? I'll probably miss not being out there.

Behind the Viewfinder - A Year in the Life of Photojournalism
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