awful things

Terrible People Robbing Piggy Banks of Hurricane Sandy Victims

Kathy Lahey sifts through her damaged home for items to save November 4, 2012 in the Breezy Point neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. With the death toll currently over 100 and millions of homes and businesses without power, the US east coast is attempting to recover from the effects of floods, fires and power outages brought on by Superstorm Sandy.
Breezy Point. Photo: Allison Joyce/Getty Images

As if the Hurricane Sandy–wrecked Queens neighborhood of Breezy Point didn’t have it bad enough already, the scum of the Earth has also invaded. One affected family came back after Thanksgiving to find their damaged home burglarized, including two piggy banks belonging to their 5- and 8-year-old grandsons. “They reminded me of them being small,” said John Perrotta in the Daily News. “That’s now shattered and gone away.”

There were at least three robberies in flattened Breezy Point over the holiday weekend, in addition to the fourteen homes hit the week prior. “I think it is despicable we don’t know where it is coming from,” one resident told CBS. “It’s not something we normally see in Breezy Point.” During the same period last year, there were no such incidents.

In response to the insult-to-injury uptick, residents are understandably freaking out a bit: On the door to one home was a new sign bearing a picture of a gun and the on-edge welcome, “I’m here and armed. Come on in.”

Piggy Banks Robbed in Sandy-Wrecked Breezy Point