The Rockaways are evacuating again today because of the Nor'Easter coming through. The temperature dropped below freezing on Monday night, and LIPA (electric power) is lying about how many customers are without power.
(Please join me below the fold.)
NY1 is NYC’s local public television.
Bob Hardt, Political Blogger at NY1 reported from his home in Rockaway beach before the storm and throughout the week. His blog will give you some sense of how devastated people are.
From his Tuesday 11/6/12, 7 a.m. post:
http://www.ny1.com/...
As good a job as the governor, the city, and the MTA have done in trying to communicate what's going on, I can't say the same for the Long Island Power Authority -- a utility that had the gall or the stupidity to tell our office that just 69 customers were without power yesterday on Rockaway.
LIPA doesn't count people whose homes are damaged and can't receive electricity as somehow being "without power.
While their reasoning might make sense in a boardroom somewhere, it does nothing to explain how much in the dark Rockaway really is. (The answer right now is almost everyone. That's roughly the entire population of Hartford, Connecticut.)
Here's a bureaucratic nugget from LIPA's website: "From the over one million LIPA customers who lost power due to the super storm that affected eight million electric customers along the east coast, 219,000 customers remain without power, excluding those customers in the most severely flooded areas that may currently be unable to receive power."
Electric utilities and water supply are critical needs - an important lesson from sandy is that they are too important for private companies to manage. Private companies have no incentive to tell the truth here and seem to purposely under-report how many households and businesses are affected.
A single customer can be a whole apartment complex, or commercial building.
There are high-rise buildings, even in Manhattan, the so-called playground of the rich, that still have no heat, or hot water, because those services are powered by steam, which is from Con Edison. Steam in New York City is a technology that is more than a hundred years old and the need for infrastructure repair is acknowledged, when a steam pipe exploded in the street a few years ago. Burying the power lines is not simple solution.
DIRECT ACTION is breaking down walls that Republicans have used to divide us. Walls based on race, background, gender, sexual orientation, and economic opportunity.
OccupySandy - direct donations through Amazon registry or St. Jacobi Church (UPDATEDx4)
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Occupy Sandy’s main hub in the Rockaways began with a solar powered generator from Greenpeace. Before long, the National Guard was relying on OccupySandy to distribute food and water. The whole world is watching!
See for yourself - Video, Rockaway Peninsula, Queens, NYC, Nov 3rd
UPS is now acting as a distribution hub for Occupy Sandy! (Nov 7th, from Occupy Sandy's social media feed)
See for yourself - Video, A gap that OccupySandy Relief stepped up to fill, Nov 1st
See for yourself - An interactive map of OccupySandy's efforts
See for yourself - OccupySandy's social media feed at Interoccupy.net
See for yourself - OccupySandy covered by Democracy Now, Nov 5th
Also see extensive diaries with many links and context:
Urgent Help Needed #OWS, 350.org by divineorder
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Hurricane Sandy-We Still Need Help by ChazcatFollow
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Some Evacuations Ordered: Snow, high winds slam storm-ravaged East Coast by War on Error
http://www.dailykos.com/...