Hurricane Hipsters

While I risked my life taking photos, others frolicked in the thrill.

Photo by Lon Casler Bixby

While Hurricane Sandy was pummeling parts of the East Coast, I had the luck of bad timing to be on vacation visiting my family in Rhode Island. But taking the opportunity to make the best of a bad situation, I decided to play a storm chasing photographer, get in the thick of the tempest, and take photos of the hurricane as it made landfall.

My sister Cyndie, always a rebel, was up for the adventure of putting our lives in danger. Plus, she was the only one with a car that I could persuade to drive me into harm’s way. It didn’t take much persuading. We bundled up in layers of weather-tight clothing, wrapped my camera in plastic, and set off on our endeavor to fight Hurricane Sandy and capture it all on film (or in digital ones and zeros as the case may be).

Cyndie said she knew of a nice little seawall and we drove to the coast, to where an old amusement park used to be, Rocky Point. Not really expecting any others to be as daring as us, we were quite surprised to find more than a dozen cars coming, going, and parked in the lot. Not losing our enthusiasm of the experience, we got out of the car and walked amongst the other daredevils… Or should I take the drama out of it and just call them lookie-loos? Either way, we all trudged in quiet awe down…