dagblog - Comments for "Powerful Storm Blankets New York Region in Snow (needs more coverage!)"

Thanks for keeping this

EmmaZahn — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 22:00:51 +0000

In reply to Powerful Storm Blankets New York Region in Snow (needs more coverage!)

Thanks for keeping this thread updated. It is an important story and one that is getting less and less coverage locally.

Where Hurricane Sandy Still

artappraiser — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 21:17:33 +0000

In reply to Powerful Storm Blankets New York Region in Snow (needs more coverage!)

Where Hurricane Sandy Still Hurts (Public housing without electricity, heat and water)
New York Times Editorial, November 8/9, 2012

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration estimated that Sandy had initially left more than 800,000 city customers without power, including many people in public housing. Many have since had their power and heat restored. Yet Steven Banks of the Legal Aid Society estimated on Thursday that more than 15,000 units of public housing closest to the city’s shoreline — mostly in the Rockaways, Coney Island and Red Hook — were still without heat and hot water or electricity.

“We’re into the second week of this,” he said, “and there is no real urgency to get it fixed. ...No can-do New York attitude here.”

More than 400 buildings run by the New York City Housing Authority were affected by the storm. Mr. Bloomberg said Thursday that 70 percent of these buildings now have heat and hot water and 82 percent have electricity. But that leaves 120 buildings and the people who live in them without heat or hot water and 72 buildings and their residents without electricity.

Whatever the precise numbers, by any accounting, life for these people is grim. On Wednesday afternoon, in the Far Rockaways, hundreds lined up for as much as three hours in the cold to get hot food promised by a makeshift delegation of volunteers. The multiple government agencies promising help were nowhere to be seen.

In a public housing building in Red Hook, residents received official notices warning that “Since Hurricane Sandy, the electricity and water will be out indefinitely.” Meanwhile, Mr. Bloomberg has been urging older residents and other vulnerable citizens to “go someplace warm,” like shelters.

On Thursday, Mr. Bloomberg expressed the hope that private contractors would be able to restore electricity by the weekend and heat “sometime early next week” to affected buildings. This is hardly comforting news to people huddled in blankets as temperatures drop. There seems to be no clear answer for why it has taken so long to send out temporary generators and boilers to help these residents.

City Hall leaders argue that restoring power is a process that is more complicated than simply bringing in generators, especially in buildings where electrical systems have been badly compromised. They promise to dispatch additional workers to public housing and a phased-in schedule to bring more power and heat each day to devastated areas like the Rockaways. To us, that sounds late and insufficient. Mr. Bloomberg needs to redouble his efforts to help those most in need.

I listened to part of Bloomberg's press conference today and it seems very much that he was responding to it, making excuses, saying what he was doing now, i.e., the Times yelling at him on behalf of those without much power really works.

No visiting The Lady and

artappraiser — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 20:32:11 +0000

In reply to Powerful Storm Blankets New York Region in Snow (needs more coverage!)

No visiting The Lady and Ellis Island for the foreseeable future due to damage:

Storm Leaves Lady Liberty and Ellis Island Cut Off From Visitors
By Patrick McGeehan, New York Times, November 8, 2012

Hurricane Sandy did no real harm to the Statue of Liberty but caused “significant damage” to the infrastructure of Liberty Island and Ellis Island, which will leave them closed to tourists indefinitely, a spokesman for the National Park Service said on Thursday.

Most notably, the dock at Liberty Island that receives the large ferries filled with tourists arriving from Battery Park in Manhattan and Liberty State Park in New Jersey may need to be rebuilt. Statue Cruises, the company that operates the ferries, said it had stopped selling tickets to visit the islands and did not know when its service would resume.

The storm hit just a day after the interior of the statue was reopened after a yearlong renovation. On Oct. 28, Ken Salazar, the secretary of the interior, visited the statue as the storm was roaring up the East Coast. The Park Service had hoped to allow tourists into the statue again by Nov. 1, but the damage to the islands was much more severe than expected.

Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the “incident management team” that the Park Service has assembled in New York City, said the statue, its pedestal and its base received “little or no damage.” But, he added, none of the mechanical systems, including electricity, on Liberty Island were functioning after the basement of the building that houses a cafe and gift shop flooded.

The basement of the museum building on Ellis Island filled with several feet or water, which ruined mechanical equipment but did not harm any of the museum’s archives or artifacts, Mr. Litterst said.

The security screening apparatus housed in a large tent on the Battery Park waterfront was also “significantly damaged,” he said. A water line on the side of the tent indicated the tide had risen to about the level of the conveyor belts on the magnetometers inside the tent.

Tourists with tickets to visit the statue and Ellis Island have been showing up there only to be disappointed to find that the islands are closed off [....]

I'd really be surprised if the National Park Service drags their feet on repairs because of budget problems or anything else, I'm under the impression from past reading that these attractions more than pay for themselves, and that's talking monetary income, not intangibles.

2:26 P.M. Obama Coming to New

artappraiser — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 20:31:23 +0000

In reply to Powerful Storm Blankets New York Region in Snow (needs more coverage!)

2:26 P.M. Obama Coming to New York City on Thursday

New York Times/City Room/Storm Aftermath Continuing Coverage

President Obama is coming to New York City on Thursday to see the damage from Hurricane Sandy firsthand, a White House official said this afternoon.

The president will “view storm damage, talk with citizens who are recovering from the storm and thank first responders who put their lives at risk to protect their communities,” the official said.

— Andy Newman

Here's a competent government

artappraiser — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 18:59:23 +0000

In reply to It's never too late to ruin a

Here's a competent government story. Kudos due to the MTA, which happens to be a strange sort of entity, a public benefit corporation:

New York Subway Repairs Border ‘on the Edge of Magic’
By Matt Flegenheimer, New York Times, November 8, 2012

[....] It has been less than two weeks since the most devastating storm in the New York City subway system’s 108-year history. Seven tunnels beneath the East River flooded. Entire platforms were submerged. Underground equipment, some of it decades old, was destroyed.

The damage was the worst that the system had ever seen. And yet, the subways have come back — quicker than almost anyone could have imagined.

Less than three days after the storm hit, partial subway service was restored. Most major lines were back within a week. Repairs came so quickly in some cases that the authority was ready before Consolidated Edison had restored power.

“Some of what they’re doing borders on the edge of magic,” said Gene Russianoff, the staff lawyer for the Straphangers Campaign, a rider advocacy group that is frequently critical of the authority.

Across the region’s transportation network, scars from Hurricane Sandy are still keenly visible. PATH service remains out between Hoboken and New York. New Jersey Transit’s Midtown Direct service is not running at all. At the Port Authority Bus Terminal, commuters endure chaos and winding lines that have lasted for hours.

But nearly everything under the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s auspices, from its commuter railroads to its bridges and tunnels, is running close to normal. Each restoration presented its own challenge, but none more daunting than the task of resurrecting the subways [....]

The sole reason for the existence of the Straphangers Campaign is to bitch about the MTA and ride on their ass, so for them to say what they did is miraculous, it truly must be. NYC Subways may be ugly, dirty, old and creaky compared to other cities, but I myself find it miraculous what they do each and every day; same thing for their bridges and tunnels (though those have gotten extremely expensive, toll-wise.)

It's never too late to ruin a

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 12:07:26 +0000

In reply to Many FEMA Centers Remain

It's never too late to ruin a good first impression. Hope they get their shit together.

Many FEMA Centers Remain

artappraiser — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 12:00:08 +0000

In reply to Powerful Storm Blankets New York Region in Snow (needs more coverage!)

Many FEMA Centers Remain Closed as Frustrated Locals Search for Aid
By Andrea Swalec, Tuan Nguyen, Mathew Katz, DNAInfo, November 8, 2012

NEW YORK CITY — Residents in the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy came in droves Thursday morning seeking aid from federal authorities — only to find centers they were told would be open inexplicably shuttered, following a nor'easter that slammed the city with snow and arctic winds the night before.

More than a dozen cars arrived at the FEMA center in Roxbury in the Rockaways Thursday morning to discover that the white tent set up to provide aid to locals was empty, despite signs indicating that it would be open.

Residents said FEMA representatives told them by phone that the center would open at 8:30 a.m. [....]

FEMA spokesman Carter Langston said Thursday afternoon that the Roxbury location, which serves the Breezy Point community destroyed by Sandy, would not reopen until Friday.

"There was a matter of coordination," he said, adding he couldn't speak for the other centers. "Through a matter of coordination, it remains closed."

Roxbury resident Bob Jahrnes, 69, a retired NYPD sergeant, stopped by the closed center to try to get a loan to cover insurance deductibles for his damaged home and car. He was similarly angry that no one was there to help him.

"Nobody's got any answers," he said. "That's the most frustrating thing."

FEMA’s Disaster Recovery Centers closed around the city on Wednesday in advance of the coming nor’easter, leaving many of the storm’s worst-hit with nowhere to go when they needed housing or help with destroyed possessions.

By Thursday morning, many FEMA centers had yet to reopen.

Residents looking to speak with representatives at a FEMA tent located at Beach 112th Street and Beach Channel Drive in Rockaway Park also found no one who could help them [....]

Brooklyn doctor and family do

artappraiser — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 21:12:34 +0000

In reply to Powerful Storm Blankets New York Region in Snow (needs more coverage!)

Brooklyn doctor and family do heroic job in Coney hell
They've embedded themselves with freezing seniors

By Simone Weichselbaum, New York Daily News, November 7, 2012:

24 stories with 6,000 residents with no elevator, no electricty, no heat, no water; excerpt:

[....] Dr. Victoria Katz, who runs the N.Y. Arthritis Clinic on E. 14th St. in Midwood, set up a satellite office inside the Warbasse Houses, a sprawling, mixed-income housing development on Neptune Ave. with a population of about 6,000 who are stuck in the cold.

“I feel so sorry. So many people don’t know what is happening,” said Victoria Katz said. “People don’t understand why they have to live like this.”

The Katz children — 30-year-old Jacob, who is a fourth-year medical student at the American University of Antigua, and 34-year-old Iya, who is a first-year medical student at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine — rotate shifts climbing up and down 24-story buildings checking on residents.

The trio has treated more than a hundred people since Sandy hit last Monday.

“Although there are a lot of people we’ve helped, a lot more people need help,” said Jacob Katz, who volunteered himself and his family last week after learning about Warbasse’s woes from a Facebook post detailing how the five-building complex with 2,580 apartments had no electricity, working elevators, heat or hot water.

Sandy's winds pushed the Atlantic Ocean’s waters a half-mile north, flooding Warbasse’s basement electrical systems, which need to be rebuilt.

“Once the transformers got hit with salt water, they were done,” said Warbasse’s manger, Thomas Auletti [....]

Bloomberg Imposes Odd-Even

artappraiser — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 20:57:13 +0000

In reply to Powerful Storm Blankets New York Region in Snow (needs more coverage!)

Bloomberg Imposes Odd-Even Gas Rationing
&
Gas Rationing Reportedly to Be Imposed on Long Island

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/storm-aftermath-live-update...

Saw the press conference, and saw him say the poor gas availability may last several weeks

Caption: Dix Hills, Long

artappraiser — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 20:52:59 +0000

In reply to Powerful Storm Blankets New York Region in Snow (needs more coverage!)

Caption: Dix Hills, Long Island, was covered in snow after Wednesday’s northeaster.

Credit: Barton Silverman/The New York Times

Source: Storm Aftermath: Continuing Coverage By The New York Times

dagblog - Comments for "Powerful Storm Blankets New York Region in Snow (needs more coverage!)"

Thanks for keeping this

Where Hurricane Sandy Still

No visiting The Lady and

2:26 P.M. Obama Coming to New

2:26 P.M. Obama Coming to New York City on Thursday

Here's a competent government

It's never too late to ruin a

Many FEMA Centers Remain

Brooklyn doctor and family do

Bloomberg Imposes Odd-Even

Caption: Dix Hills, Long