My wife saw it first. She returned home after work the following day and opened the door to the basement steps

As told to Chaia Frishman by Yeshaya Kraus

IN August 2011, as Hurricane Irene approached the Bayswater section of Far Rockaway, New York, the local news agencies issued dire forecasts warning us to batten down the hatches and gird for the worst.

In our home, we barely felt the impact. There was a trickle of water in a spot that always leaked on rainy days. It was the storm that cried wolf.

That’s probably why we weren’t inclined to take Hurricane Sandy too seriously 13 months later. Once again, the news stations were blaring evacuation warnings, but we weren’t going to fall for that this time. We figured we’d go to my in-laws in Brooklyn for a night and come right back.  We took things off the bottom shelves in the basement just to be yotzei, and we packed whatever we’d normally take for a two-day getaway with three kids — clothes, pajamas, pacifiers, certainly not our valuables. It wasn’t only us; the general feeling in the neighborhood was, “Yeah, right.” One of our neighbors didn’t plan on leaving at all.

The only special action I took was to stop into Home Depot on my way home the day the rain started. I wanted to buy a generator for the sump pump, just in case. They were sold out.

It wouldn’t have done much good anyway. No sump pump would have stood up to Hurricane Sandy. Between the drains backing up and the bay crashing through the backyard, we wouldn’t have gained more than a few extra minutes.