Plan B Forum

I recall all the crap thrown at Bush over the Katrina debacle.

Here's Obama's fustercluck.

Strange how the media has been silent.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/left ... lxfSCKnPrM

Residents in Rockaways, Brooklyn complain of lack of assistance after Hurricane Sandy


By LORENA MONGELLI, IKIMULISA LIVINGSTON and LEONARD GREEN


Last Updated: 6:30 AM, November 3, 2012
Posted: 2:00 AM, November 3, 2012


They’ve been shouting from shaky rooftops and begging from battered basements, yet residents of the storm-ravaged Rockaways say all they have gotten back is silence.

With all the pumping, the backed-up toilets, the clogged sewers and houses that feel like frozen-food sections, residents say they feel abandoned.

“We haven’t gotten any help,” said Kathy Gambino, 51, who lives on flooded Rockaway Beach Boulevard. “Politicians are just driving by in their nice cars. Why don’t they come speak to us and tell us what we need to do?”

Gambino’s neighbor Regina McManus evacuated, as Mayor Bloomberg asked, but returned to a first-floor home that had absorbed four feet of water.

“It’s November, and it’s getting cold,” said McManus, 53. “I have three kids. How am I supposed to keep them warm?”

If that weren’t enough, she has brown water coming out of her pipes, her thyroid medication is running out and most of her clothes are ruined.

“I understand I need to wait my turn,” McManus said. “But please tell me: When will it be my turn?”

Deborah Carter is hoping she is next in line. Carter, the tenant association president of the Gravesend Houses, a seven-story complex of apartment buildings in Brooklyn, said her patience, like gasoline, is in short supply.

“Half of the development does have power, half doesn’t,” she said. “The grounds are wet, and the basement is wet, so they can’t turn on the electricity until it dries.”

She said young people in the building have been looking out for the elderly residents — which is more than she can say for officials.

“It’s been a little rough,” Carter said. “It has been a little humiliating. I have a lot of residents telling me that FEMA offered them two little bottles of water. I had a lot of residents crying about that.”

At St. Francis de Sales Church on Beach 129th Street in Belle Harbor, Queens, the gymnasium is filled with donated clothing, canned goods, shoes and towels.

“We got more stuff than I expected,” Monsignor John Brown said. “We don’t need clothes, just batteries, gas, generators and baby items.

“We got hit pretty hard over here,” he said. “This community is very resilient and determined to get back together. But how reasonable that is, I don’t know.”

Nicole Moriarty, 35, who was volunteering at the church, said, “This is a community of helpers, so I am not surprised to see everyone here.”

“We banded together after 9/11, and we are doing it again. You see a lot people here who lost stuff but are helping people who lost more.”

The storm’s effects also linger in Brooklyn neighborhoods like Bath Beach, Gerritsen Beach, Gravesend and Coney Island.

“I slept in the car for two days,” said Richard Melendez, who lived on Neptune Avenue but is caring for his mom in the Gravesend Houses. “It’s terrible. But we’re trying.”

He said the city’s response has been slow.

“There is oil in the whole house, and it just destroyed everything,” he said. “We had to leave. There’s gas in the house.”

Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton

It does raise the question, "Why a Redux?"

You do realize the storm was 1,000 miles wide and there are far more people impacted than from Katrina. Also, because the swath of destruction is so huge, there are still people no one can get to yet because of the numbers of downed trees and power lines. There is no gas available at 50% of NY/NJ gas stations, which means no one can get anywhere (that line about politicians driving by in their fancy cars is complete bullshit -- the NY Post is a rag). You may have also noted that the federal government is having the military bring in fuel, and has eliminated certain port restrictions so other vessels can bring fuel in as well.

My sister, several hundred miles from NJ/Long Island, out in CT, just got her power back yesterday afternoon. The roads were just all finally cleared from fallen trees on Friday. And they are far from the most severely impacted.

It hasn't been a week yet. Lord knows, its a miserable situation, but give it some time -- from all the people I know in NY and NJ -- progress is being made.

The difference is that in Katrina thousands of people were TRAPPED BY FLOOD WATERS WITHOUT FOOD, WATER, MEDICAL CARE, OR ANY WAY TO ESCAPE. And no help, and no rescue was coming even though the US Navy had ships nearby which could have sailed up the Mississippi to NO and evacuated people. While "Brownie" was doing a 'hell of a job'. People died waiting for rescue for days and days while Bush did nothing.

In this case people are able to leave the effected areas and emergency services can and are getting to people. The type of help FEMA is offering is different and gauged to a different set of circumstances.


yrs,
rubato

http://economistsview.typepad.com/econo ... trina.html

___________________________

Paul Krugman: Sandy Versus Katrina

The performance of government improves dramatically when the president staffs government agencies with professionals rather than political cronies:

Sandy Versus Katrina, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: As Sandy barreled toward New Jersey, there were hopeful mutters on the right to the effect that it might become President Obama’s Katrina,... and that this might matter on Tuesday. Sorry, guys: polls show overwhelming approval for Mr. Obama’s handling of the storm, and a significant rise in his overall favorability ratings.

And he deserves the bump. For the response to Sandy, like the success of the auto bailout, is a demonstration that Mr. Obama’s philosophy of government — which holds that the government can and should provide crucial aid in times of crisis — works. And conversely, the contrast between Sandy and Katrina demonstrates that leaders who hold government in contempt cannot provide that aid when it is needed. ...

Consider, in particular, the history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Under President George H. W. Bush, FEMA became a dumping ground for unqualified political hacks. Faced with a major test in the form of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the agency failed completely.

Then Bill Clinton came in, put FEMA under professional management, and saw the agency’s reputation restored.

Given this experience, you might have expected George W. Bush to preserve Mr. Clinton’s gains. But no: he appointed his campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh, to head the agency, and Mr. Allbaugh immediately signaled his intention both to devolve disaster relief to the state and local level and to downgrade the whole effort... After Mr. Allbaugh left for the private sector, he was replaced with Michael “heckuva job” Brown, and the rest is history.

Like Mr. Clinton, President Obama restored FEMA’s professionalism, effectiveness, and reputation. But would Mitt Romney destroy the agency again? Yes, he would. As everyone now knows — despite the Romney campaign’s efforts to Etch A Sketch the issue away — during the primary Mr. Romney used language almost identical to Mr. Allbaugh’s, declaring that disaster relief should be turned back to the states and to the private sector. ...

The fact is that if Mr. Romney had been president these past four years the federal response to disasters of all kinds would have been far weaker than it was. There would have been no auto bailout, because Mr. Romney opposed the federal financing that was crucial to the rescue. And FEMA would have remained mired in Bush-era incompetence.

So this storm probably won’t swing the election — but if it does, it will do so for very good reasons.


___________________________________________


yrs,
rubato

What a load.

Once again, rube has brought us the thinking of The Liar Krugman...

What are Krugman's lies?

Well, aside from the answer to a Great Karnak card ('Name two things that go together like a horse and carriage') I'll claim that this:

August 1, 2012, 9:33 am
Tee Party
So the Republican nominee for Senate in Texas is a man who believes that there is a global plot, led by George Soros, to eliminate golf courses. Also, that states can nullify Acts of Congress. Politics in the world’s greatest nation

is a lie. Tracking back though the links one finds that the Red Rose from Texas believes that there is a global plan strongly supported by George Soros to promote a UN agenda to exert international or perhaps supranational control over land usage. This will impact "non-sustainable" uses of land, amongst which are golf courses.

The lie is that the Marlboro man does not characterise this as a "plot . . . to eliminate golf courses" - that false idea is put forward by Krugman as a red herring, a stalking horse, a straw man with the specific purposes of diverting attention from any serious consideration of the issue.

This just happened to be the item that came up when I googled images for "Soros playing golf"

Meade

PS "Tee party" is a good one

That's it?

He wrote

... a global plot ... to eliminate golf courses ....

when he should have written

a global plot whose obviously foreseeable -- and, therefore, presumptively intended -- consequence is the elimination of golf courses

?

???

That makes him "The Liar Krugman"?

That?

No (patiently) - I have never said he is "The Liar Krugman". You asked for examples of a lie. I found one at first look but cannot be bothered to look further since the entire matter is quite boring and will no doubt be exhaustively covered or ignored by others.

I would regard your suggested correction as almost as false in its intent as the original

Meade

Andrew, we went through this several months ago...

You can check out the links again in the "recompense" thread...

From someone on the ground here on Long Island, although agreeably hardly affected by damage other than waiting for power to be restored, which wasn't very bad as I was fortunate enough to get a 5500W generator on wednesday shortly after the storm. But I did spend boookooo time on gas lines getting gas for said generator and cars (gotta get to work and my meetings).

Anyway
Local preparation for the storm was, as far as I can see, many, many times better than Katrina. Evacs were ordered, transportation provided, people were cleared out of prone areas and those choosing to stay were told flat out, that you may die and rescue WILL not be coming in any kind of timely matter. Fire Island was cleared saturday and sunday (storm hit monday). I think some people were allowed back to survey this past weekend, but no one can stay AFAIK.

Shelters were opened over the weekend before the storm and from what I saw (my local high school, sachem east) had enough supplies and staff well before and after the storm. For a week before, there were warnings to the general public. There were postings of who will/may be evacuated. Of course there are some (maybe more than some) who thought back last year to Irene which wasn't too bad in terms of strom surge and flooding and said they could ride it out. But this one hit at the wrong time (high tide and full moon) and flooding was big. So big it took out some sewage treatment plants which cause sewage in the flooded streets and thus the homes.

Waves came up higher than expected and went further inland.

Two breeches (maybe three) in fire island (barrier beach protecting much of the south coast of long island) occured allowing the atlantic into the Great south Bay bringing more water into the low lying areas on the south shore. Mastic, Mastic Beach, Shirley, Lyndenhurst are all hard hit. Some areas are so bad that LIPA (Long Island Power Authority) has teken them off the "still without power list" as they are unfixable until a house by house eval has been done to see if it is even safe to turn on power to some of the regions. Suprisingly, directly south of me is Patchogue, which had very minor damage, much less than last year when Irene hit. But again, local govs were there, ready and able to do what was needed.

Generators and batteries sold out the friday before the storm so some people were preparing. I happen to always keep batteries on hand but some were old (as we haven't used them in a year) so they didn't last long. But they did their job and candles, a propane lamp and conservation lasted us until I got the generator.

Staten Island got walloped and from what I hear (I do have relatives living there) the place is a mess/disaster. First time I have heard of SI getting hit that hard so maybe those people did not prepare as well as they should have or were really not expecting what they got hit with. In my 54 years here, I can't remember getting these reprts of that kind of damage from SI, even when Gloria hit in 1985.

Rockaway and Long Beach are devastated (two more barrier islands on the south shore) but again, evacs were in place well before the storm.

But as far as FEMA (and even the Red Cross) I hear complaints coming in that in the hard hit areas, they have been having next to no effect at helping the victims. FEMA set up some spots, but from what I heard, they were nothing but "paper work" (aka red tape) centers for people to get advice on how to file for aid. Minimal direct aid is being given AFAIK. This is all second hand info gathered from local TV news (News 12 Long Island), the newspaper (Newsday) and people I meet at work and elswhere who live in these areas. One guy here who lives in Long Beach said FEMA came to his house and asked how he was doing and he gave him a list of problems and things he could use, never to be contacted again. That was saturday. So FEMA is there, but not doing much.

Don't know who Krugmann is nor if he has "toured" the affected areas, but I doubt he is getting anything but 5th hand info. Obama's FEMA doesn't seem much better than Bush's FEMA. What I do know is the locals here were much better prepared than the locals in NO when Katrina hit. And IMO that is how it should (and has) to be. When a parking lot of busses (presumably full of gas) is underwater and none were used to evac an area which is below sea level and a CAT3 hurricane is heading your way, that is local incompetance.

I do wish the gas situation would get done with. There was a news special on News 12 about how the tanker trucks were lined up (they showed them) and the barges were hooked up to the pipe out in the LI sound (they showed them) but the "seasonal mixture" was slowing things down tremendously. The shots were taken at the Port Jefferson terminal where they mix the blend of gas and ethanol (methanol?) for Long Island for the different seasons.You would think that in a crisis situation we could do without the blending and get the gas to consumers. The gov put this blend in place, they can "wave" it for a week or two to get the region back going quicker. The car will not know the difference other than maybe give you better milage.