Today’s post comes from Victoria Blue, staff writer at the National Archives
Seven months after Hurricane Sandy swept over the Caribbean and up the Eastern seaboard of the United States, communities affected by this destructive storm are still working to rebuild their lives.
Today, we remember the past and present of the storm’s impact with Historypin’s newest project: “Hurricane Sandy: Record, Remember, Rebuild.” You can learn more about the project in Historypin’s video:
The Hurricane Sandy project is a shared online collection of local history as captured by individuals and cultural heritage institutions alike. Anyone can contribute images to the Historypin project to tell the story of their communities and neighborhoods before, during, and after Hurricane Sandy.
The National Archives contributed more than 30 digital images from our holdings to the Hurricane Sandy project. These images document areas along the East Coast as they existed before the storm. Visit the project page to see images from our holdings pinned to their original locations on the map:
“The National Archives is proud to partner with Historypin for the Hurricane Sandy project. This project speaks to our mission of preserving records and making them available to the public,” said Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero. “While the National Archives’s buildings generally fared well in the storm, we know that many did not. Our staff have reached out to state archivists, and worked with other agencies to coordinate records recovery operations. It’s critical that these chapters in our nation’s history, no matter how devastating, are not forgotten.”
Other collaborators include Google, the Metropolitan New York Library Council, the Society of American Archivists, and the American Association of State and Local History. Local libraries and historical societies also shared photos of Sandy and other hurricanes reaching back to 1938.
You can view the project, explore memories of Hurricane Sandy, and make your own photo contributions at http://historypin.com/sandy.
As a resident of Brooklyn, New York during the Storm, luckily I only lost (roughly) 65% of the siding on my house. However, many of my wife’s friends, living on Long Island, suffered terrible damage. Three of those friends lost all of their possessions. It was certainly something I won’t forget any time soon.