Hurricane Sandy and the Woman Who Fed My Soul: A City Symphony

Back in 2012, New York City fell quiet.

Nine days after Hurricane Sandy, the Financial District was still dark. The hum of generators replaced taxi horns, and the air smelled faintly of saltwater, smoke, and candle wax. Streets that usually pulsed with motion had stilled into puddled reflections of themselves. For the first time in a long time, the city was asleep.

I was downtown that day. The power was still out below Canal, and most of the buildings were sealed up or half-abandoned. The usual rush of suits and sirens had been replaced by silence — just the occasional shuffle of boots on wet pavement and the low hum of distant generators.

That afternoon, Derek got the call.

A man from Iowa, his voice trembling.

“I’m trying to find my friend Gisella,” he said. “She’s visiting from Italy. She’s staying in a high-rise downtown. No one’s heard from her since the storm.”

Derek called me. I was still nearby, close enough to reach her building — so I did what came naturally: I called Brett.

Brett was the company’s young powerhouse — athletic, fast-thinking, all heart. Derek was the co-founder — grounded, brilliant, the kind of man who could build a business by day and teach entrepreneurship at Columbia by night.

And then there was me — two years into my New York City real-estate life after moving down from upstate, where I’d been an agent since 2004. A single mom, still figuring out what “home” meant after my husband passed away in 2008. I’d moved to the city in 2010, trying to start over — whatever that meant. I was learning New York one listing, one heartbreak, one small act of courage at a time. And maybe that’s why I didn’t hesitate. Because when life takes everything from you, you learn the power of showing up for someone else — even a stranger.

When we arrived, the building loomed above us like a darkened metronome marking time in silence. No doorman. Just one tired security guard sitting behind a folding table lit by a flashlight, keeping watch over a powerless tower. He let us in with a quiet nod, the kind that said, Go on. Be careful.

So we climbed — all thirty floors.

The stairwell was pitch black — not movie dark, but real dark. Our flashlights and phone screens cut small trembling circles through the dust and quiet. The sound of our footsteps echoed off concrete walls, the rhythm hollow and uncertain.

By the tenth floor, my lungs had bailed — they quit and stayed behind on the stairs, wheezing in protest.

By the next ten, my legs had turned to Jell-O.

By the time we reached the thirtieth — somewhere between exhaustion and faith — I had met Jesus. Full conversation. No notes.

Brett moved with determination, Derek’s steady professor’s pace never wavered, and I brought up the rear — not on purpose, but because destiny and physics demanded it.

And with every step, the fear grew heavier. Because we didn’t know what we were climbing toward. We didn’t know if she was even alive. There was no key, no plan B — just a name, a floor, and a call from Iowa that landed in the right hands.

When we reached her apartment, we stopped and listened. Nothing.

We knocked.

Waited.

Knocked again.

And then — a voice.

Faint. Shaky. Real.

She was there.

When Gisella opened the door, daylight poured in through the enormous windows, flooding the hallway with warmth after all that darkness. She didn’t look fragile; she just looked spent — confused, tired, trying to make sense of it all. Her hair was wild, her pajamas creased, but her eyes were sharp and full of life. She blinked at us — three strangers holding flashlights and faith — and relief began to settle across her face like sunlight finding a home.

Inside, the air was still and heavy. A few grocery bags sat by the counter, mostly empty. She hadn’t eaten much — a pear, an apple, half a yellow pepper, a little mozzarella, some pasta she couldn’t cook, and a bottle of Pinot Grigio that had been both dinner and morale.

She told me how it happened.

She had flown in from Italy the night before the storm — seventy-eight years old, alone, still spry and independent. Knowing jet lag would hit hard, she’d stopped at the store on her way from the airport to pick up a few things to get her through a couple of quiet days — bottles of water, some cheese, fruit, pasta, wine. She unpacked, plugged in her phone to charge, and went to sleep.

When she woke up, the city had gone silent. Power gone. Phone dead. No elevator. No neighbors. No one in the hallway.

She stayed, assuming the lights would come back. They didn’t.

Every day, she ventured out into the pitch-black corridor and pressed the elevator button, waiting, hoping. But the elevator never came. And when we finally knocked on her door, after nine long days, she wasn’t sure if we were real — or if she was dreaming us.

We told her Steve from Iowa had called. She didn’t believe it until we dialed him and let her hear his voice. The sound of that connection — that relief — filled the room like air returning to lungs.

A few hours later, FDNY arrived — tired, soot-smeared, magnificent. They carried Gisella down all thirty floors, chariot-style, their flashlights bouncing off the walls like tiny comets. She smiled the whole way, waving like royalty, because that’s what she was — a survivor with perfect posture and impeccable grace.

When one of the firefighters asked what she’d eaten, she shrugged.

“A pear. An apple. Half a yellow pepper. And some Pinot Grigio.”

Then she grinned.

“Because I am Italian. And I am not dead yet.”

When we reached the lobby, there wasn’t a crowd waiting or cameras flashing — just a few of us clapping, partly for her, partly for the fact that we’d made it down in one piece. In that quiet lobby, our laughter bounced off the marble walls like the sound of something human finally returning.

When the firefighters left, it was just us — me, Brett, Derek, and a tiny Italian Nonna beside a small mountain of luggage. Wall Street itself was still mostly empty; cabs couldn’t drive down, but you could hear the occasional honk from a cross street nearby.

I had no idea what her financial situation was, but I knew one thing for sure — I wasn’t about to let her spend seven hundred dollars a night on a hotel room just because it was marathon weekend.

So I did the only thing that made sense. I hailed a cab on the corner.

We jumped in and headed uptown. I didn’t even know what I’d say when we got home — I just knew we were going home.

When we got to my apartment, the first thing she did was open my fridge. That was… humbling. She stared inside, closed it slowly, and gave me that wordless look only grandmothers can give — the one that says, You poor, unfed creature.

The second thing she asked for was a bath.

Luckily, I have a 1905 cast-iron bathtub — the kind that could baptize a person back into the world. While she soaked, I ran to the store to fill my shamefully empty fridge. When I came back, she was in my robe, hair wrapped in a towel, already claiming territory in the kitchen.

Within an hour, garlic was sizzling, olive oil was singing, and the apartment smelled alive again. Matisse — my daughter — was right there beside her, wide-eyed, watching, tasting, learning. Somewhere between the garlic and the laughter, Gisella lit a spark in her that never went out. That night didn’t just feed us — it planted something. The woman we rescued from a dark apartment ended up creating a chef.

That was the night the city — and my home — exhaled.

Gisella stayed with us for a few days while we figured out her next move — calls to family, plans for Chicago, endless cups of coffee, endless laughter. When she finally decided to head west to stay with friends, she left quietly, with hugs and gratitude and promises to write.

A few days later, a package arrived at my door. Inside was a gleaming set of pots and pans and a note that said simply:

“So next time, you’ll be ready for guests who cook.”

I laughed until I cried.

We’ve stayed in touch ever since. I saw her again when she turned ninety — her last trip to New York. She told me she wouldn’t be flying anymore. But she didn’t need to. Her spirit still travels — through every meal cooked with love, through every kitchen that smells like garlic and grace, through every storm that reminds us to show up anyway.

When it counts, people show up.

That day, a stranger was found.

That night, a home was shared.

And somewhere between a silent city, a stairwell of flashlights, and one cast-iron bathtub, two strangers became family.