New Yorkers living in the outer boroughs have taken to calling themselves the “Katrina boroughs.”
As they scrape round desperately for food and are forced to use their gas hobs to keep warm, many claim they are the forgotten victims of Sandy and are furious that in Manhattan preparations are underway for the New York City marathon on Sunday.
‘If they take one first responder from Staten Island to cover this marathon, I will scream,’ New York City Councilman James Oddo, who represents parts of Staten Island and Brooklyn, said on Twitter. ‘We have people with no homes and no hope right now.’
Well, councilman, your mayor believes the marathon must go on to put a smile on your face.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg offered an extensive and full-throated defense of his decision to hold the New York City Marathon on Sunday. “We have to have a city going forward,” the mayor said, adding, “New York has to show that we are here, that we are going to recover.”
Mr. Bloomberg said the marathon would use “a relatively small amount of Sanitation Department resources,” and he added that there were plenty of police officers available “who work in areas that aren’t affected; we don’t take all of them and move them into areas that are affected.” The marathon would “give people something to cheer about,” the mayor said. “It’s been a dismal week for a lot of people.”
Indeed it has. It seems to me that no one is doubting whether New York is still there, but the recovery is in some doubt.
Residents are pleading for help as they fear their devastated neighbourhoods are being ignored.
In a Coney Island apartment block, where tenants huddle together in one room and human waste spills out of the toilet, tenant Jeffery Francis despairs that help is not getting to Brooklyn faster.
‘We are scavenging for food like animals,’ he told the New York Daily News. ‘We are in a crisis and no one will help us. Look at us. We are misery. Everyone cares about Manhattan. No one is looking out for us. Nothing.’
Senator Obama might have come up with a racist theory to explain the disparity in relief services. That’s exactly what he did after Katrina.
“We have to have a city going FORWARD“
AAAARRRGGGHHHHH ! ! ! !
There’s that word again! Did Bloomie vocalize an Obama logo when he enunciated that word?
I think Bloomberg has lost his ever-loving mind.
The damaged neighborhoods are experiencing looting. Fights are breaking out and guns are being drawn at gas stations. The police are needed to patrol these neighborhoods and quell these fights. Cops are having to direct traffic throughout the areas without street lights. Pulling even one officer away from relief is one too many.
Any diversion of resources from the sanitation department is too much. There is sand, mud and debris clogging streets in three boroughs.
Tons of water will be supplied to the race, but people are without running water in lower Manhattan as well as Staten Is., Queens and Brooklyn.
Precious fuel is being used to run generators at the event tents. Each of those generators could be commandeered to supply 400 homes with electricity.
New Yorkers should protest the race. They should have pickets waving for all the TV crews. They should boo the runners along the route. Demand water from the tents. Create a public relations nightmare for Hizzoner. That’s apparently the only way to get his attention.
The movement involved in cheering for the runners will help you stay warm.
Obama seems to hate White people and Black people. Well he is half of each.
The stupidity here is difficult for my little brain to grasp.
We have non-union volunteers electrical workers being turned away, the Red Cross using the kabillions collected to pass out hot chocolate and cookies, FEMA no where to be seen, and the mayor withholding salt, soda, foi gras and electricity to run a marathon so the people that are without adequate food, water and shelter have something to cheer about.
We are truly living in bizarro world.
On the human waste situation: hasn’t anyone ever told them about garbage bags?
I know I’m in a very tiny minority but I agree with Bloomberg for one simple reason: He can’t do anything about the damage from Sandy but he can hold a marathon.
It all goes back to Crisis Management 101 – Do Something, even if it’s wrong. Bloomberg has the choice of being seen doing nothing or the choice of being seen with the wrong priorities. Both are bad but being seen doing nothing is far worse. Doing nothing gives rise to dismantling the entire government monstrosity because it’s useless when you need it most, doing the wrong thing might get Bloomberg booted but it leaves the soul-sucking apparatus in place.
If I were Bloomberg, and wanted the government behemoth to survive, then I’d be throwing a Circus as well.
I would agree with you, but…
They have set up giant tents, food services, and electric generators in Central Park – for runners. While people a few miles away in Staten Island have no food, shelter, or power.
Cops, EMT personnel, etc… will be pulled out of clean-up duties to work a marathon.
People who lost their houses and checked into hotels, will be booted out of their rooms in favor of marathon runners.
It’s insane.
So the Wizz proclaims distraction IS the answer! Too bad that two thirds of his subjects couldn’t see the proclamation live, as they had no power, no heat, no fuel, no transport, and by the weekend, no fresh food or potable water.
The expenditure of this amount of human eneregy could be better directed in a more positive manner than mayoral ego.
As a veteran of Andrew, Wilma and some of their lesser pardners in chaos I have nothing but contempt for ‘Pubic Officials’ who see nothing more than a Foto-Op.
About a week into the Andrew crisis when chopper after chopper ferrying dignitaries was causing air traffic control problems as the ‘Lookie Lou’s’ made their personal inspections, a young lady in the Dade County Disaster Management crew found an open TV reporter’s Microphone amd asked bluntly “Where the hell is the calvery?”
Anyone else see things getting ugly when the residents realize that food and water is being handed out to the marathoners????
I feel bad for the folks out on Stanton Island, but I also wonder more and more what has happened to Americans self reliance. I’m just not seeing any of those “grass roots, let’s all pull together as neighbors to help each other in the meantime” stories. I’m seeing lots of “where are the people who are supposed to come rescue me and give me food and water, etc.” stories. (Maybe that’s just editorial choices).
When I watch the destruction of these densely populated areas, I’m also reminded of Obama’s open antipathy to the suburbs and rural America. His ideal American life is Urban with people dependent on Mass Transit.
I’m wondering also about the store of canned beans and the neighborhood “Stone Soup”. I realize having excess supply of food for emergenices is considered terrorist but self-survival in disasters seems more important.
I live in an unincorporated area. In a motorhome. With generator, batteries, inverter, self-contained kitchen and bathroom, canned food, you name it, we got it.
If it doesn’t have wheels on it, I don’t feel comfortable living in it.
When you cram a half-million people onto a 58 sq mile island, your self-reliance options are pretty limited.
I live in NJ. I fueled up my car before the storm. The next day, when it became obvious that we would be without power for a long time, I packed up the kids and drove to a relatives’ house in another state.
Exactly.
I suppose this is why, whenever I see his name in print, my mind sees it as “The Dangerously Unstable Michael Bloomberg.”
Fin de siecle. Thank God almighty, fin de siecle.
– like Rudy would give them something to cheer about, Bloomhole.
Bloomberg is an idiot, that’s a given. I imagine that even during the best of times 99% of New Yorkers could give a gnat’s patootie about the Marathon except for the fact that it’s a traffic disruption.