Calvin Liu received a text from his mom last Tuesday.
His parents did not have electricity and their Staten Island home was flooded after Hurricane Sandy touched down on the Eastern Seaboard last week.
The hurricane caused property damage, displaced local residents and left millions without electricity in New York, New Jersey and several surrounding states.
“You look at the pictures now, you’re pretty horrified to see that something like New York was affected by something like this,” said Liu, a first-year computer science and engineering student.
First-year physics student Matthew Lin’s friends were living in New York City when the hurricane made landfall. After losing power and having to relocate, Lin’s friends asked him to help them connect to their families, Lin said.
The time difference between his friends’ home in Taiwan and New York made it hard for them to contact their parents. So they would Skype with Lin, and he would email their families, he said.
“I’m kind of like the (mediator) for them,” Lin said. “They still have to keep the connection with friends and family.”
Damage caused by Hurricane Sandy extended beyond the coastal areas and is expected to be several times more devastating than last year’s Hurricane Irene, the last major storm to hit the region, according to Reuters, an international news organization.
Jonothan Acosta, a first-year psychobiology student who is originally from Pennsylvania, didn’t think the impact from the storm would be so widespread, he said.
“We’re rarely affected by these things,” Acosta said.
His uncle had to evacuate his Connecticut home because of flooding, he said.
Two theories are currently circulating about the peculiarities of Hurricane Sandy, said C. Roberto Mechoso, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at UCLA.
Most hurricanes tend to curve into the Atlantic before landfall, and some scientists contend that winds from a storm already in the northeastern U.S. may have brought Sandy more inland, Mechoso said.
The other theory states that ice melting in the Arctic Ocean changed the pressure dynamics of the northern Atlantic Ocean, making Hurricane Sandy take a different path, he said.
Still, he added that more research needs to be completed to evaluate why the hurricane took the path it did.
After witnessing the disaster through several media outlets, fourth-year biochemistry student Brian Paak recently joined the UCLA branch of the American Red Cross, he said.
“I’ve learned that even besides people affected on the East Coast there are a lot of people affected in Cuba and Jamaica,” Paak said.
He and other members of UCLA Red Cross were on Bruin Walk last week, collecting donations that will go toward helping individuals affected by the storm.
Many of the residents in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut regained electricity, and efforts to rebuild have begun, though gas and transportation issues remain as school starts back up again and people return to work, according to reports by the New York Times.
Liu talked to his parents on Saturday ““ the first time in five days, he said.
Acosta’s uncle recently moved back into his apartment. Its parking structure sustained damages, Acosta said.
Lin’s friends are safe, and their electricity has since been restored, Lin said.
“The storm was a pretty big detriment to the people of the Northeast,” Acosta said. “But they are resilient people and they’ll get through it.”
Email Aquino at taquino@media.ucla.edu and Nelson at rnelson@media.ucla.edu.