January 21st, 2013
Hurricane Sandy slammed into New York and New Jersey nearly three months ago, and the grueling recovery effort continues with work being done to repair, rebuild and reopen shattered homes and businesses. But the process has been uneven, and there is ample evidence that many people are still struggling in the aftermath of one of the most vicious storms to hit the region. Following are snapshots of how some people and places are faring on the road back.
LOWER MANHATTAN
Headaches Persist in Lower Manhattan After Hurricane
Lower Manhattan enjoyed one of the shortest recovery times in the region, with electricity returning to most of the area less than a week after Hurricane Sandy flooded streets from the financial district to Greenwich Village.
Seawater crippled utility systems in many basements, keeping both businesses and residents from returning to buildings that lacked power, water, heat or other basic services several weeks after the hurricane. But most of those buildings were able to reopen by the beginning of January, said Liz Berger, president of the Downtown Alliance.
Community leaders say most small businesses are open again, with the prominent exception of South Street Seaport, where the retail area known as Pier 17 and the South Street Seaport Museum are back in business but much of the district is still shuttered. And it has been nearly three months since residents of 2 Gold and its neighbor, 201 Pearl Street, have lived in their own apartments; the buildings’ owners said recently that they hoped to move people back in by March 1 after rebuilding the basement electrical systems and boiler.
Smaller headaches linger, a daily reminder of the way the hurricane paralyzed life here: the South Ferry subway station was so damaged that it has been closed indefinitely, a few businesses are still cash-only as they await the return of their credit lines, and some still lack phone service. Such problems have prompted Verizon to replace all of its underground copper wiring, ruined by the floodwaters, with modern fiber-optic cables, a process it has told downtown leaders will be nearly done by the end of the month.
— VIVIAN YEE
HOBOKEN
Hoboken, Deceptively Well-Off, After Hurricane
The floodwaters spared the waterfront and Washington Street, but came rushing over the north and south ends of the city, overwhelming neighborhoods that on a map might look landlocked and less vulnerable.
Along inland streets, many stores and restaurants remain closed, and contractors’ trucks remove debris from homes and businesses that had to be gutted after the storm flooded them with several feet of water and sewage.
The biggest problems remain for about 1,700 businesses and homes in what real estate agents delicately call garden-level units. Flood insurance policies consider them basements and cover damage only to things like boilers and water heaters, even if the basement happens to be a primary residence, as it is for many here.
These units’ owners are left to apply for grants to get a piece of the aid package Congress passed. But the grants are unlikely to cover all their costs. “It’s an unfair system,” Mayor Dawn Zimmer said. “People are feeling like, ‘Why am I forced to pay for flood insurance that won’t give me coverage?’ ” It is up to Congress, she said, to change the rules for flood insurance so basement apartments and homes have the same coverage.
— KATE ZERNIKE
STATEN ISLAND
Slow Recovery From Hurricane for Some Staten Island Residents
Recovery on Staten Island, which suffered extensive damage to its beach communities, has been quick for some residents of the hardest-hit areas but slow for many others.
New York City officials estimated that nearly 6,000 buildings in the borough sustained damage or disruption to utility services, driving occupants to seek temporary lodging elsewhere.
Since then, tons of debris have been cleared from the borough’s streets. power and heat have been restored to most properties, and a majority of homes damaged by the storm have been reoccupied. But hundreds of families are still struggling.
In the Midland Beach neighborhood, residents have moved back into most of the newer multilevel homes, which were spared the worst of the storm surge, while many of the low-slung single-story bungalows remain dark.
Contractors have completed repairs on more than half of the 2,400 or so structures in the borough registered for the city’s Rapid Repairs program, said Peter Spencer, spokesman for the mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery, but work has yet to begin on more than one-fourth of them.
City officials also estimate that about 300 buildings are still without power or heat. Another 200 are uninhabitable because they were destroyed or rendered structurally unsound. Mr. Spencer said the planned demolition of about 100 structures on the island began last week and was expected to continue at a pace of about a dozen a day.
In an effort to assess residents’ needs, a coalition of more than 50 religious groups was dispatching volunteers to go door-to-door in the borough’s beach communities and conduct “a three-month, where-are-we” survey, said the Rev. Terry Troia, executive director of Project Hospitality, an interfaith organization on Staten Island.
“There’s one little old lady who’s living in mold and won’t come out and has a sign on her door that says, ‘I’m O.K.,’ ” Ms. Troia said. “That person’s a cause for concern.”
She added, “We want to find out how many other little old ladies there are.”
— KIRK SEMPLE
GERRITSEN BEACH
‘More or Less Back to Normal’
George Broadhead, the head of the Gerrittsen Beach Property Owners Association in Brooklyn, got steam heat percolating in his house after New Year’s Day, having survived for two months on a space heater and sleepovers at friends. His status — improving, but not quite whole — is emblematic of the entire enclave of 2,300 closely packed, low-lying seaside bungalows that was swamped by Hurricane Sandy.
Mr. Broadhead is pleased that the mounds of waterlogged furniture and wallboards are gone, that a bus dispatched by Coney Island Hospital outfitted with doctors and medical supplies is helping older people like himself nurse their colds and other ailments and that a hall run by the community’s volunteer firefighters is dispensing food to those who have not restored their stoves and refrigerators.
But the flip side of all that help is that people are still hurting, so Mr. Broadhead’s tentative words to describe himself — “more or less back to normal” — fit the neighborhood.
Jim Donovan, a contractor who is chairman of the private Cort Club, said “Gerritsen Beach is going great, but we still have a tremendous mold problem.”
Perhaps 20 percent of the area’s homes are still unlivable, Mr. Donovan estimated. He has been promised money from organizations like Rebuilding Together NYC to help neighbors install walls and replace appliances, and is taking applications.
— JOSEPH BERGER
PUBLIC HOUSING
In New York Public Housing, Complaints Remain After Hurricane
Backed up toilets; weeks of no heat, running water, electricity or elevators; pitch-black hallways; elderly and infirm residents marooned on upper floors without food, water or means of egress — all counted among the miseries Hurricane Sandy brought to residents of seafront public housing buildings. The New York City Housing Authority came faced criticism, most recently at a City Council hearing, for being poorly prepared for the storm and its aftermath. In the days after the storm, many residents relied heavily, if not solely, on volunteers going door to door bearing meals, blankets, bottled water and medicine.
Life has since returned to a dissatisfactory normal for most people living in public housing. Lights and heat are back on, though 10 buildings in Red Hook, Coney Island and the Rockaways still have mobile boilers, run by generators.
“Sometimes you don’t have water for three days, sometimes it’s scalding hot,” said Miriam Williams, 47, whose mother lives in Red Hook Houses.
Ann Valdez, who lives in Coney Island Houses, cited an influx of water bugs, cockroaches and mice.
Vernell Robinson, 50, a health counselor who lives in Arverne and whose building lobby was filled with two feet of water, said, “You can imagine what Sandy brought along with it.”
Many residents used their meager savings to replace spoiled food and in some cases find shelter.
— CARA BUCKLEY
LONG BEACH
Lingering Impact From Hurricane in Long Beach
In Long Beach, N.Y., about 40 percent of the population has not returned after Hurricane Sandy, officials in this Long Island community said. There is little to come back to. Houses inundated by the storm surge are still waterlogged and molding.
For those who remain, a kind of depressed insularity has set in, as if time froze as the floodwaters withdrew.
“On the weekends I go out of town because it’s sad here,” said Carlos Ferreiro, an owner of a clothing store called NY Threads.
“Outside people talk about gun control and the debt,” he added. “Here, people are all talking about the same thing” — meaning, the storm.
Mr. Ferreiro’s house remains unlivable, and his business is on shaky ground. He said he would try to endure another three months and then reassess. Other business owners have given in and closed down, he said.
“We decided to stick it out,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”
With their kitchens out of order and restaurants too expensive, many residents in the low-income North Park neighborhood still rely on warm meals provided by a local community center.
Since the storm hit in late October, Thelma Graham, 67, has been having meals at the center with the 13-year-old granddaughter she cares for. She also acquired a winter coat and boots from donated clothing still piled on tables on the center’s basketball court.
She said life was difficult but improving. After living in a rental apartment for months, she moved back into her newly refurbished home just before the new year. She still has no furniture in her living room, but said she did not mind that too much.
“Thank God we have our lives,” she said. “The material stuff can be put back slowly.”
— MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
HOWARD BEACH
Struggling to Return to Normal After Hurricane Sandy
Most of the waterfront pizza parlors, nail salons and restaurants on Cross Bay Boulevard, a main thoroughfare in Howard Beach have reopened for business, despite extensive water damage and electrical repairs.
Who in the southwest Queens neighborhood can forget the crowds that showed up at Gino’s, the first pizzeria to fuel up a generator the weekend after Hurricane Sandy brought a bay of water down area streets? The delight over the availability of hot Italian food and even catering hall space has been replaced with disappointment that many chain stores, including Duane Reade, 7-Eleven, Petco and Staples, largely have not scrambled with the same determined fervor to reopen.
Sharon De Riso, a Howard Beach native who manages Clear Water Pools, said, “Many of the small business owners took a long time to reopen, because they also had destroyed homes they needed to tend to.” But Clear Water, which had its roof torn off, never closed and has served about 600 customers since the storm, she said.
Ms. De Riso said she was thrilled to see that CVS finally opened on Wednesday.
State Senator Joseph P. Addabbo Jr. said recovery in Howard Beach had been slow, and he estimated that about one-third of the area’s businesses were still closed. Duane Reade, he said, confirmed that it would not reopen, but promised to reassign the employees.
(The company had already donated $25,000 to the local volunteer fire department.)
“It’s important for these businesses to open, important for our community to regain a sense of normalcy and important for people’s jobs,” Mr. Addabbo said.
— FRANCES ROBLES
Source: New York Times
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