It isn’t hard to remember where I was when Sandy hit our area a year ago. Only a few weeks in to my new gig at 95.5 PLJ, I broadcasted my show that Monday night as the storm ravaged New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. I’ll never forget looking out our studio windows throughout the course of the evening to see Manhattan become darker and darker as parts of the borough lost power. The sound of the wind hitting the building and metal scraps and trash bouncing off the concrete below are still very clear in my mind.

The weeks after were chaotic. Families trying to not only figure out what they lost, but how they would get it back. Communities figuring out what was appropriate in the aftermath of the devastation and what could wait – whether it be a marathon, Halloween, a sporting event, or other activity. Government leaders placing politics aside and actually unifying for once to help the people that they were elected to serve in the first place.

From a music perspective, the first thing that always comes to mind is the band fun. The trio is based in New York; Jack Antonoff and his family were living in New Jersey at the time. I caught up with them after an unforgettable rendition of “Carry On” on “Saturday Night Live” and asked them about not just the performance, but the feat of returning to New York for the gig.

“We flew to Atlanta, where our bus happened to be driving through to pick us up for tour anyways,” recalled lead singer Nate Ruess on “The Ralphie Show” last year. “We spent 19 hours on the road, and by the time we got in to New York, ‘Sandy’ had happened that night, so we kind of saw the devastation thereafter.”

On Tuesday night, as we marked the one-year anniversary of the storm on-air, a nurse called in while driving to work. Exactly one year ago, she was at that same job helping patients evacuate from NYU Langone Medical Center.

So many have already given so much to help these areas rebuild, yet there is still more to be done. Find out how you can assist in the recovery here.