Sandy – the aftermath
Almost a week after Sandy invaded New York and the entire Atlantic coastline of the United States, the impact is still being felt far and wide. Incredibly as many as 60 million people in 24 states were directly affected by what is now known as Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy. At the peak of the storm, the diameter of winds stretched 1,040 miles and extended 520 miles from the center of circulation making it one of the largest ever recorded.
To give you a further sense of the scale of Sandy’s consequence, it knocked out power to more than 8.5 million customers across the US, and 2.5 million still remain without electricity. The storm caused extensive damage to electrical grids, mobile phone towers and nine oil refineries. Over 20,000 flights were cancelled in 4 days including mine, swarths of the famous New York subway was flooded and the NYSE was closed for two days, the first time for weather since the Great Blizzard of 1888. Over 100 died in the US alone.
New Jersey sustained the brunt of Sandy’s punch, which is where she made landfall just south of the gambling mecca of Atlantic City. The hardest-hit areas came along the famed Jersey Shore and many pretty coastal towns such as Seaside Heights, Point Pleasant Beach and Belmar have extensive damage. Historic boardwalks and piers are no more and the amusement park in Seaside Heights is now in the sea.
Further north along the Hudson River thousands of structures are damaged or destroyed. Half of Hoboken was under water and at least 14 neighbouring homes in the wealthy town of Mantoloking were each destroyed by fire, believed to have been triggered by a natural gas leak. The economic losses in the state of New Jersey is expected to be at least $1 billion.
I have a number of friends in New Jersey, many live ‘on the shore’ and the 127-mile coastline has been turned upside down. Eulogised by the irritating reality TV show Jersey Shore, about a group of foul-mouthed, horny, hard-partying 20-somethings, Sandy has left an indelible and very large footprint.
Communities rich and poor, from the wealthy suburban communities in the north, betrayed by their stately trees that took down power lines and smashed homes and cars, through gritty, blue-collar river towns along the Hackensack River, there were few parts of the state untouched.
But it is the city of New York that has had most of the attention. The city that swaggers and bawls is bent over double after taking a major blow from Sandy. Lower Manhattan, downtown, the powerhouse of the countries financial muscle, has no power and is like a ghost town. Battery Park, a lot of which is built on landfill witnessed a record-setting 13.88 feet storm surge as waves crashed over sea-walls and into low-lying areas.
Water also flooded into the iconic construction site of the World Trade Center and two commuter tunnels and seven subway tunnels were overrun with salt water. I don’t know of any offices that are operating in Lower Manhattan and our office there will be closed for most of this week.
NYC has survived worse though and it is some of the metro areas that have suffered most. 111 homes were destroyed by fire and 20 others damaged by floods in Breezy Point, Queens. Areas that I know well like Long Beach and Rockaway with beach homes uprooted and moved hundreds of feet. Coney Island, a New York family institution may never recover. Then there is Sandy’s forgotten victim, Staten Island, which suffered the highest death toll of all of New York’s boroughs.
In the shadow of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, dazed survivors roamed Staten Island’s sand-covered streets amid ruined bungalows sagging under the weight of water that rose to the rooftops. Their contents lay flung in the street: Mud-soaked couches, stuffed animals and mattresses formed towering piles of wreckage. Boats were tossed like toys into roadways and all the while the city busied itself for today’s New York City Marathon, one of the largest in the world.
The NYC Marathon traditionally starts in Staten Island just before the Verrazano Bridge. South Beach, a neighbourhood nearby, suffered tremendous damage from Sandy. Meanwhile generators, hotel rooms, medical workers plus hundreds of full time and auxiliary cops would be taken away from getting the city back on it’s feet. Two days ago under duress Mayor Bloomberg cancelled the New York City Marathon.
Economic losses for the state of New York are anticipated to be $20 billion. The city that doesn’t sleep continues to toss and turn stuck in a very bad dream. I hope to be there next week and expect downtown to already be showing signs of recovery, however Sandy may have moved on but a chill wind will blow around some of this great cities towns and neighbourhoods for some time to come.
