Hurricane Sandy thread

[Texsox]

He had what was coming to him then, hard to feel bad.

 

 

Leave or possibly die? I'll figure out a way to leave.

 

Sure. Now think about the people living in the worse areas of cities. The areas with drive by shootings, drug deals in their hallways. They face possibly dying every day, why haven't they figured out a way to leave? Think about Mexican nationals who risk dying crossing deserts, being smuggled in trucks, crossing rivers in the dead of night. Why?

 

People with limited financial means are always facing risks far greater than others. They become use to it. When all you got is all you will ever have, walking away is harder than you may think.

 

[southsider2k5]

Sure. Now think about the people living in the worse areas of cities. The areas with drive by shootings, drug deals in their hallways. They face possibly dying every day, why haven't they figured out a way to leave? Think about Mexican nationals who risk dying crossing deserts, being smuggled in trucks, crossing rivers in the dead of night. Why?

 

People with limited financial means are always facing risks far greater than others. They become use to it. When all you got is all you will ever have, walking away is harder than you may think.

 

With the type of interviews being given, I am pretty sure they weren't illegals.

[Texsox]

I was pointing out that people that are clutching the bottom rungs of the economic ladder are exposed to far greater risks than you and I. So a storm, no matter how great the potential destruction, may seem like not that great a risk. Combined with being a refugee with little or no cash that prospect may be far more threatening than staying and riding out the storm. We see the people who lost that risk, rarely do we see the many more who stay and are fine. Also, and I see that living in an area where projections have had probably eight or none hurricanes coming through and only one actually did, waiting is a natural response. I don't know of anyone on South Padre that evacuates with more than 12 hours on the clock.

[Reddy]

hey y'all. day 2 on the ground. was in one of the hardest hit areas today and ... i still don't have words to describe it. but i'm pretty certain folks are going to freeze to death over night. Going to get to the high twenties, and there are tons of seniors and kids with no food, no water, and no heat. The Red Cross and FEMA are completely useless. If you can spare it, please consider donating to:

 

https://www.wepay.com/donations/occupy-sand...anup-volunteers

 

Regardless of your political beliefs, the Occupy movement is the only organization doing ACTUAL good on the ground, mobilizing supplies to the hardest hit areas.

 

These people really need your help.

[Jake]

The government at some level needs to provide some way to get people evacuated in these instances. The whole premise of our government is preventing you from dying needlessly from things like starvation. Take the goddamn public transit and ship people to safety. Go door to door to spread the info if you have to.

[kapkomet]

hey y'all. day 2 on the ground. was in one of the hardest hit areas today and ... i still don't have words to describe it. but i'm pretty certain folks are going to freeze to death over night. Going to get to the high twenties, and there are tons of seniors and kids with no food, no water, and no heat. The Red Cross and FEMA are completely useless. If you can spare it, please consider donating to:

 

https://www.wepay.com/donations/occupy-sand...anup-volunteers

 

Regardless of your political beliefs, the Occupy movement is the only organization doing ACTUAL good on the ground, mobilizing supplies to the hardest hit areas.

 

These people really need your help.

 

 

And I saw that mid-week, the area is going to get hit by another storm. Not "superstorm" or anything, but bad weather, where they do NOT need it.

[Reddy]

And I saw that mid-week, the area is going to get hit by another storm. Not "superstorm" or anything, but bad weather, where they do NOT need it.

yep, gonna get a nice noreaster on top of everything. not good.

[StrangeSox]

from someone I know through another board. he works at NYU's hospital doing research.

 

It's been a nightmare within a nightmare.

We watched that Con-Ed explosion from our 25th floor apartment window.

Whereupon the power went out.

I raced into the hospital where they were evacuating patients on stretchers down tens of flights of stairs, because the elevators were out. Tried to save as much precious research materials in failing freezers by transferring to liquid nitrogen as I could. Watched 34th Street become an extension of the East River up to 1st. Ave. Got back to 25th floor apartment where not only is there no power; there's no water above the ground floor. (It requires power to pump it up.) So the entire building is shlepping up and down the one emergency powered elevator to get enough water to at least flush the damn toilets.

 

Meanwhile, the vivarium flooded and years worth of breeding of genetically engineered mice drowned. http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/11/01/s...dical-research/

 

I left the city because there's nothing much more I can do. All of lower Manhattan (south of 40th St.) is still dark. Last I heard, they thought maybe they'd get emergency generators in the research building in 2 or 3 days, but it might be until next Wednesday before there's water and power in the apartment. I'm going to the family farm in New Jersey. Power is out there, too. But at least there's water. I'm at the public library using internet access, which - like everywhere else I've tried - is pretty spotty. It seems like all the power outages must have taken a toll on internet connectivity.

 

Well, 211 at least survived the evacuation.

 

2 of them didn't.

 

The hospital/research building is still a mess. People are only going in to keep feeding dry ice into non-functional freezers. I don't think I'll go back into the city until there's some point in being there. Apparently there's another storm due Wednesday. Not on the scale of Sandy, but it could knock out more power, and could be a setback in terms of recovering.

 

They restored power to our NYC apartment (it's actually part of the university/hospital). And internet access. But still no heat and no water.

 

I'm still in New Jersey, with no power. I'm at the public library right now for my daily contact with the outside world. It may be a month, or more, before we get power back here.

 

[Rex Kickass]

I am extremely lucky to live where I live. About the only benefit of my neighborhood is that our powerlines are underground and I am on the same circuit as the NJ state house. I never lost power. I have coworkers who are now on day 8 without power. One of our coworkers likely lost her house, but doesn't know because the bridges to her island are too dangerous to be opened to travel.

 

I was one of two people who actually went into our office on the day of the storm because we have travelers that were in NYC and affected and needed to get information and emergency arrangements.

 

My boyfriend lives on Staten Island and his house was ok (he lived on the east side of the island) but lost power for five days. A close friend lives on Long Island. His first floor was approximately 10 feet above ground (He raised his foundation), still got 2 feet of water. His spare car? Submerged.

 

 

[Reddy]

After 3 days of volunteering I saw my first Red Cross team today. (and by team I mean a girl and a guy driving a Red Cross truck)

 

Guess what they were doing?

 

Photo ops. Not helping. Taking pictures of the truck in front of torn up homes.

 

Glad NBC raised $23 mill for those douchewads.

[LittleHurt05]

Barack Obama doesn't care about white people!!!

[StrangeSox]

Maybe I missed it upthread, but where are you helping, Reddy?

[Jenksismyhero]

Barack Obama doesn't care about white people!!!

 

Truth

[NorthSideSox72]

After 3 days of volunteering I saw my first Red Cross team today. (and by team I mean a girl and a guy driving a Red Cross truck)

 

Guess what they were doing?

 

Photo ops. Not helping. Taking pictures of the truck in front of torn up homes.

 

Glad NBC raised $23 mill for those douchewads.

On the one hand, I am impressed you have decided to volunteer to help out with this situation. Not many people make that level of effort, and I think it is fantastic.

 

On the other hand... I think your characterization of your highly localized work with an ad hoc political group being somehow superior to the Red Cross is, well, ridiculous. The Red Cross can't pick a spot to work - they have to do things across the entire area. Tooting your own horn on this is all well and good, but I think you have no concept of reality in terms of what Red Cross, FEMA, or any other large scale work that is being done regionally. They may be doing well, or poorly, but you truly can't have any real idea from where you are standing.