So Sandy is over and done with, the news is dissipating and life goes on. Life will certainly go on, no doubt, but I want to provide many of you with a first hand account of what I've seen, and heard about that might not be shown via mainstream media.
Over the past ten days, I've volunteered out in the Rockaways, the barrier islands of NYC located in southern Queens, and lived for a few days in lower Manhattan. To a casual eye passing through the city for a few days, things seem back to normal. Subways are running, people are bustling about, and gas can be found. However, you peel back the onion with a trained eye, and you'll notice that this city is in disarray.
To start, lower Manhattan is still very much a disaster. Walking around, it seemed there was almost an invisible line between places that were open for business, and places that were flooded out and shuttered. Down here, MANY places have no hot water, no working elevators, or no heat. While it's convenient for the power company to say that electricity has been restored, the reality is, is that many businesses and residents are going to be displaced for weeks and months. Down at some Financial District bars, employees were facing the reality of losing their jobs because of the reality that thousands of people who would normally frequent those bars, would not be coming in for a drink anytime soon.
An even more stark, and in your face reality of the storm's destruction comes when you enter outer boroughs. Additionally, I'm sure much of what I'll say can be applicable to Long Island, as well as the Jersey Shore. The southern coast of Brooklyn, Queens and much of Staten Island consists of low lying land that faces directly out into the Atlantic Ocean. From what I saw volunteering last week out on The Rockaways the devastation was far beyond anything I could ever imagine. Entire neighborhoods no longer exist. There is a beach in the middle of the road blocks from where the beach once existed. Houses, blocks, communities are gone. Nothing is open. Access to these locations is limited at best. Heat is off. Power is off, or spotty at best. Access to basic prescription drugs is limited. FEMA, power companies, volunteers are working hard, but...
This post is becoming a bit of stream of conscious, but when you see people crying, wondering what to do with their lives, people from the city you were born and raised in, it eats you up inside. It makes the $25k in damage suffered to my property almost comical. What worries me is the untold deaths that won't be accounted to because of the storm, but from a lack of basic medical care, a lack of life preserving prescriptions, from a lack of power to run home medical equipment.
Equally as worrying, though in hindsight necessary, is a fundamental rethink of the viability of building a first world infrastructure in an area so vulnerable to disaster. It's unsustainable to rebuild an entire neighborhood in an area that was in many ways wiped off the map. Having been to post Katrina NOLA, leaving Burbon St. and having seen the way neighborhoods were destroyed and never rebuilt, I worry the same will happen to many of these destroyed neighborhoods.
What I've said is without a political agenda, a racial agenda, a class agenda, but it's something that deeply disturbed me, and humbled my brazen NYCish personality. I am not here to quibble about how I should get used to this, how this happens elsewhere, how well government organizations did or did not respond. I am in no mood to hear your backhanded political agenda in your response to this thread either.
I simply want you to be aware of what I've seen and what I feel is going on here. I don't want you to like this post. I don't want rep points. I want you go get your fucking ass in this city, spend some money, bang some girls, volunteer if you have some free time and remind yourself why this is such an awesome city. NYC always gets lots of love from the forum. It's your turn to get here and love it back for a day, a week, a month, a year, a lifetime.
Over the past ten days, I've volunteered out in the Rockaways, the barrier islands of NYC located in southern Queens, and lived for a few days in lower Manhattan. To a casual eye passing through the city for a few days, things seem back to normal. Subways are running, people are bustling about, and gas can be found. However, you peel back the onion with a trained eye, and you'll notice that this city is in disarray.
To start, lower Manhattan is still very much a disaster. Walking around, it seemed there was almost an invisible line between places that were open for business, and places that were flooded out and shuttered. Down here, MANY places have no hot water, no working elevators, or no heat. While it's convenient for the power company to say that electricity has been restored, the reality is, is that many businesses and residents are going to be displaced for weeks and months. Down at some Financial District bars, employees were facing the reality of losing their jobs because of the reality that thousands of people who would normally frequent those bars, would not be coming in for a drink anytime soon.
An even more stark, and in your face reality of the storm's destruction comes when you enter outer boroughs. Additionally, I'm sure much of what I'll say can be applicable to Long Island, as well as the Jersey Shore. The southern coast of Brooklyn, Queens and much of Staten Island consists of low lying land that faces directly out into the Atlantic Ocean. From what I saw volunteering last week out on The Rockaways the devastation was far beyond anything I could ever imagine. Entire neighborhoods no longer exist. There is a beach in the middle of the road blocks from where the beach once existed. Houses, blocks, communities are gone. Nothing is open. Access to these locations is limited at best. Heat is off. Power is off, or spotty at best. Access to basic prescription drugs is limited. FEMA, power companies, volunteers are working hard, but...
This post is becoming a bit of stream of conscious, but when you see people crying, wondering what to do with their lives, people from the city you were born and raised in, it eats you up inside. It makes the $25k in damage suffered to my property almost comical. What worries me is the untold deaths that won't be accounted to because of the storm, but from a lack of basic medical care, a lack of life preserving prescriptions, from a lack of power to run home medical equipment.
Equally as worrying, though in hindsight necessary, is a fundamental rethink of the viability of building a first world infrastructure in an area so vulnerable to disaster. It's unsustainable to rebuild an entire neighborhood in an area that was in many ways wiped off the map. Having been to post Katrina NOLA, leaving Burbon St. and having seen the way neighborhoods were destroyed and never rebuilt, I worry the same will happen to many of these destroyed neighborhoods.
What I've said is without a political agenda, a racial agenda, a class agenda, but it's something that deeply disturbed me, and humbled my brazen NYCish personality. I am not here to quibble about how I should get used to this, how this happens elsewhere, how well government organizations did or did not respond. I am in no mood to hear your backhanded political agenda in your response to this thread either.
I simply want you to be aware of what I've seen and what I feel is going on here. I don't want you to like this post. I don't want rep points. I want you go get your fucking ass in this city, spend some money, bang some girls, volunteer if you have some free time and remind yourself why this is such an awesome city. NYC always gets lots of love from the forum. It's your turn to get here and love it back for a day, a week, a month, a year, a lifetime.
