As superstorm Sandy bore down on Cranford, N.J., last week, former Kalihi Valley resident Gil Caminos and his family took in about 12 friends and community members who had evacuated their homes.
"It felt like the house was moving around," said Caminos, 53, a Radford High School graduate who has lived in New Jersey for 11 years but visits the islands often and owns property on Oahu.
"The wind made this loud whirring, and you could hear these booms and crashes," he said in a phone interview Monday. "Sometimes when we looked outside, we saw what we thought was lightning, but realized it was the transformers (exploding). It was like fireworks."
Caminos’ three-story hillside home sustained some roof damage, and many trees on the property fell, but otherwise got through Sandy intact and has water and electricity.
Cranford is a township of about 22,000 residents, a bedroom community within commuting distance of Newark and New York City.
Caminos and his wife, Tricia, 46, own an upscale thrift store, which also escaped the storm with little damage, in nearby Garwood. It is one of a handful of businesses still open in that area.
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"We’ve become a kind of a community hub," Caminos said. "We offer free coffee and power to customers with no power or place to stay. It’s a place to hang out, a respite from the craziness back home, where they can use the Internet and charge their devices. We have a sign outside that says, ‘Free Electricity.’"
The Caminos also continue to reach out to families who may need a place to stay or just hang out at their home.
"It’s the least we can do, to spread the aloha spirit," he said. "We can’t save the world but we can do this."
Caminos said his family is fortunate to live in an area not prone to flooding, but still faces difficulty finding food and other necessities, and continues to fight hours-long gas lines.
"At the end of the day, you’re just susceptible to Mother Nature," he said.
In Honolulu the Hawaii chapter of the American Red Cross has sent 19 volunteers to storm-ravaged areas since the beginning of the month. Twenty-one others are prepared to deploy.
Many of the volunteers are health care workers assigned to assist in shelters in New Jersey and New York, said American Red Cross Hawaii State Chapter CEO Coralie Chun Matayoshi. Others will work in the organization’s Safe and Well program, which helps family members find loved ones.
Volunteers are likely to be on the East Coast for two to three weeks.
"We’re expecting this to be a longer deployment," Matayoshi said. "Even though the storm already hit, the effects can last a long time, and there’s going to need to be reinforcements. They’re also expecting another storm (today), so volunteers will continue to be in high demand."
A nor’easter threatening to target the East Coast is expected to be just off Cape Hatteras, N.C., this morning. The storm was expected to bring winds of up to 55 mph, coastal flooding, up to 2 inches of rain along the shore, and several inches of snow to Pennsylvania and New York.
Said Matayoshi, "The wonderful thing is that volunteers are not only helping people who need their help on the East Coast, but when they come back they’ll be the leadership for when, not if, something major strikes Hawaii. So we’re really invested in having qualified people go and come back to serve our community. It’s like combat: You can train and practice for it, but if you’re not there you don’t really know what’s needed."
