Dubai: A former Dubai resident has described “the scariest night of her life” during tropical storm Sandy.
Nada Al Kashef, a 22-year-old Psychology major staying in the Washington DC metropolitan area, said she was more afraid because she had recently moved to the US.
“The storm hit us bad, but not as bad as New York.
“The temperatures went down drastically and it has been raining continuously for over 24 hours now and the winds are bellowing.” Nada told Gulf News over the phone yesterday.
She said: “We have over two feet of rain in the streets. I have lived in the UAE most of my life and the scariest thing there was sunstroke, so this has been the scariest night of my life.”
She added that her windows and balcony cover an entire wall and the glass was shaking and rattling from the stormy winds. “Things were flying and slamming into the glass, I was so scared that I hid in my walk-in closet for hours.”
She said that before the storm, they received e-mails warning them to stay indoors. “We were told it’s safest to stay indoors and one of the reasons was that trees could snap and block the streets.”
“People stocked up on food, flashlights and water and we filled out bath tubs with water in case the water gets cut.” She added that the lights kept flickering all night.
Nada said her balcony is now full of debris and when she looked out of her windows she could see little whirlwinds near the ground.
“I couldn’t sleep through the storm and was watching movies to cover up the noise caused by the wind and rain.”
Meanwhile, UAE resident Haider Khan, 41, a senior manager at Etisalat and an avid runner, has faced travel disruption amid the storm.
His plans to run the New York Marathon on Sunday have been scuppered.
He was supposed to fly on Tuesday morning but his flight was cancelled when Sandy hit the US.
Khan said that he had been training hard for this marathon, “I had spent a gruelling year pounding the streets of Dubai Investment Park. Nothing was going to stop this dream that I had had since 2010, to be a part of one of New York’s most exciting events.” he added.
His enthusiasm was cut short early Tuesday morning at 2am. “My first thoughts were, ‘Am I in or am I out?’ My enthusiasm dropped further as I learnt that my flight from Dubai to Doha was okay but Doha to New York was cancelled.”
His options, he said, were either to reschedule or get a coupon, which would be valid for a year.”
Determined to travel, he now hopes to be on one of the first flights out of the UAE to New York as soon as they resume.
“I feel a certain anxiety now as potentially I will be amongst the first few people to land in New York from the UAE after Hurricane Sandy.”
