By Rakhi Kundra, Middle School Staff Writer

The lights went out.  This time it wasn’t a flicker.  The lights didn’t come back on.  Hurricane Sandy had finally had it’s full effect on the New Jersey, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power, hundreds of people without homes.

Hurricane Sandy had been building up, and people had been preparing for it.  However, New Jersey has had hurricane warnings many times before, and many of them had turned out to be nothing.

The storm hit New Jersey the hardest.  However, the part of the storm that most affected us Newark Academy Middle Schoolers was the power outage.  Most of the Middle School community at Newark Academy didn’t have power for a week or more. But how did we survive this?  Our lives revolve around the intranet, television, cell phone reception, and electricity in general.

Personally, I struggled through those five days that my family did not have power. They were probably the five longest days of my life.  I felt like I was trapped in a hole and could not climb out.  I realized, however, how dependent we as people are on electricity.  Gas lines were hours long because people were getting gas for their generators so that they could have some electricity.

How has this storm, this loss of power, influenced us a NA middle schoolers?  Are we more thankful for what we have?  Do we understand how life was during the days that electricity didn’t exist?  How have we changed?  Middle schoolers shared their opinions on these questions.

8^th grader Olivia DeLamielleure said “Hurricane Sandy showed me that I take advantage of technology, and that without technology it gives us a feel of how other people live, like in Africa because they don’t have things like power”.

Another 8^th grader, Julia Tarnow, said “I learned that electricity is very important. It is important to conserve gas and not carelessly drive around, and not to take food and water for granted.”

7^th grader Pranay Sinha said that “I had a power outage for 10 days.  I learned not to take things for granted”.

6^th grader Drew Flanagan said that “Hurricane Sandy taught me the valuable lessons of energy saving and to be thankful for what I have.”

Hurricane Sandy has not only influenced the ways that Middle Schoolers think, but the actions they take.  Friends are sharing homes, sharing generators, fundraising, and much more.  Hurricane Sandy has helped NA middle schoolers to evolve for the better.