I met Lula on a volunteer effort in Coney Island set up through InterOccupy Sandy. The area was flooded and without power. Lula lives in a public housing building that on a good day has many issues. After the storm, without electricity or policing, nearby shops and apartments were looted for an entire day without interruption.

Lula considers herself lucky. Her friend’s ground-floor apartment was flooded. “When the water started coming in to their apartment they got up on a table. But then the table legs broke and they fell in the water. It was horrible,” said Lula. With nowhere to go, her neighbors are stuck in a dark, wet and cold apartment that smells from flood water and will soon have mold issues.

Lula was able to rescue her cat from her ex-husband’s nearby flooded apartment. The cat was sitting on a table surrounded by water, she told me smiling.

Lula is a native of Maldova. She was an engineer before moving to the U.S. 14 years ago. She now cleans houses for a living.

According to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg 20,000 to 40,000 people in New York, many of them residents of public housing, will have to find new homes.