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Patience Wears Thin as Region Cleans Up, With Toll Rising
Patience Wears Thin as Region Cleans Up, With Toll Rising
(about 3 hours later)
Patience wore thin over gas shortages, power failures and long lines for everything from buses to food handouts on Friday, as many parts of the New York City region struggled to recover from the devastation left by Hurricane Sandy.
Emotions, frayed after almost a week of desperation, darkness and cold, approached a breaking point on Friday as the collective spirit that buoyed New York in the first few days after Hurricane Sandy gave way to angry complaints of neglect and unequal treatment.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg decided on Friday afternoon to cancel the New York City Marathon, scheduled for Sunday, amid a growing backlash from residents and local politicians angered at the intent of staging a race when many New Yorkers are still dealing with severe hardships.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, facing criticism that he was favoring marathon runners arriving from around the world over people in devastated neighborhoods, reversed himself and canceled the New York City Marathon.
“While holding the race would not require diverting resources from the recovery effort, it is clear that it has become the source of controversy and division,” Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement. “We would not want a cloud to hang over the race or its participants, and so we have decided to cancel it.”As people cleaned up the debris from wrecked homes, and with painful reminders all around of the toll in lives lost, Mr. Bloomberg’s initial support for holding the race outraged many frustrated New Yorkers.
The move was historic — the marathon has taken place every year since 1970, including the race in 2001 held two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and was projected to bring in $340 million.
Pressure had been mounting for Mr. Bloomberg to cancel the race for days as power remained out across the city and commuters grinded through one of the most difficult weeks for transportation in the city’s history.
For days, the mayor, who is often reluctant to abandon a position of his, insisted on going ahead with the race, saying it would signal that the city was back to normal.
Even as the mayor was making his decision, there was more grim news about the storm’s toll.
He changed his mind as opposition became nearly unanimous. Critics said that it would be in poor taste to hold a foot race through the five boroughs while so many people in the area were still dealing with damage from the hurricane, and that city services should focus on storm relief, not the marathon. A petition from some marathoners called on other runners to skip the race and do volunteer work in hard-hit areas.
On Staten Island, the borough that bore the brunt of the city’s casualties, rescuers pulled two bodies from a house in the hard-hit Midland Beach neighborhood on Friday afternoon. Neighbors who had been carrying ruined furniture and trash to the street watched as two body bags were carried out of a house on Olympia Boulevard, about two miles from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
But the mayor liked the parallel to Sept. 11 and saw the marathon as a symbol of the city’s comeback. He talked to former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on Friday morning; Mr. Giuliani said to stick with his original plan.
The two victims, who were not immediately identified, brought to five the number of bodies found in Midland Beach, a low-lying area of bungalows and newer two-story houses that was hit hard by the surge that accompanied the storm.
Within the mayor’s inner circle, though, there were concerns. Some advisers worried that the criticism could steal the focus from Mr. Bloomberg’s well-received performance during and after the storm, and could damage his legacy in the way that the city’s botched response to a blizzard had done in 2010.
The borough has become the epicenter of the devastation wrought in New York by the hurricane, which swept through the area after making landfall on Monday, as most of the more than 40 fatalities have occurred there.
Behind the scenes, there were also concerns about what the world would see: images of runners so close to neighborhoods that had been battered by the storm, at a time when gasoline remained in short supply and mass transit was still not fully functioning.
And in a visible and welcome sign of recovery, lights began flickering in several Manhattan neighborhoods, including the East Village, the Lower East Side and Chelsea.
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Deputy Mayors Howard Wolfson and Patricia E. Harris all argued for calling off the event.
And government officials continued to emphasize their round-the-clock efforts, many by volunteers or employees whose own homes had been damaged, to restore normal life.
The mayor, virtually alone in saying the race should go on, finally relented and canceled it after a conversation with Mary Wittenberg, the marathon director, late Friday. “This isn’t the year or the time to run it,” she said.
But people were becoming exasperated. At a housing project in Coney Island, residents who stayed behind expressed mounting frustration at the absence of electricity, services and, in some cases, security. Some said they were so frightened that they locked themselves in their apartments at night and refused to open the doors to anyone.
Patience also wore thin in other parts of the New York area amid lines that were once again painfully long — lines for free meals, lines for buses to take people where crippled subways could not, lines for gasoline that stretched 30 blocks in Brooklyn.
“It’s terrible,” said Marilyn Smalls, 48, who lives at the housing project in Coney Island. “Totally black. It’s dangerous.”
Hand-lettered signs in hard-hit areas struck a plaintive note: “FEMA please help us,” read one in Broad Channel, Queens. In Hoboken, N.J., one was addressed to Gov. Chris Christie: “Gov. Chris — where is the help $$$$”
Government officials have asked for patience. City departments tried to stave off the anger by opening help lines, handing out free meals, updating citizens with progress in restoring services and monitoring Twitter feeds, where they answered residents directly about their individual commutes. Fees were waived for bus and subway travel.
Ethel Liebeskind of Merrick, N.Y., echoed that idea as she stood in the storm-tossed ruins of the house she had lived in for 26 years. “This is as bad as Katrina,” she said, “and they got global attention. The South Shore of Long Island should be treated the same way. Don’t forget us on the South Shore of Long Island. We need help.”
Amid the continuing grief and hardship, Mr. Bloomberg announced on Friday that the death toll in the city had risen to at least 41.
There was more grim news on Staten Island, where rescuers pulled two bodies from another house in the Midland Beach neighborhood, about two miles from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Neighbors who had been hauling their ruined furniture and trash to the street watched as two body bags were taken out of a house on Olympia Boulevard.
But there were some positive signs: parts of Lower Manhattan might have power by the end of Friday, New Jersey Transit started running partial rail service, more of the Metro-North Railroad system was back and the Staten Island Ferry started up again.
The two victims were not immediately identified. They brought to 40 the official count of people who died as rampaging wind drove a wall of water into the city on Monday night.
Mr. Bloomberg also said that a rule that required cars traveling into Manhattan on all tunnels and bridges, except the George Washington Bridge, to have at least three people would be lifted at 5 p.m. on Friday.
On Staten Island, which even in good times is often referred to as the city’s forgotten borough, desperation and anger was especially intense.
Consolidated Edison, he said, hoped to have power restored to “most” of Manhattan by midnight Friday, although residents who live in boroughs served by overhead lines will have to wait “a lot longer” for power to return. But perhaps mindful of the realities of disaster recovery, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s briefing was filled with encouraging updates along with expressions of caution. He said the city had made “great progress,” with service restored to about half of the two million customers who lost electricity during the storm.
David Sylvester, 50, returned to his house in Midland Beach — he had left it the mayor issued evacuation orders for low-lying areas, and it burned down when a power line shorted out during the storm — and criticized the government and relief agencies for not arriving fast enough.
Noting that progress in restoring power to Manhattan’s downtown area in particular would be a “big step forward” for transportation serving the area, he also hedged his remarks, noting it “did not mean that every light” would work.
He said that not until late Thursday afternoon did anyone from the Federal Emergency Management Agency stop by, and then the man said he should make an appointment. “First he told me to go on the Internet,” Mr. Sylvester said, “and I said, ‘Where should I plug it in?’ ”
Speaking about the shortages, including of gas, he said: “It is going to require some patience, it is not going to get better overnight, it is not going to be a one- or two- or three-day situation. A little patience, a little compassion, a little understanding will make it better for everyone.”
The secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano, visited Staten Island and defended the federal government’s response to Hurricane Sandy, saying relief supplies were close by before the storm and were ready to be delivered once it cleared out.
“It has been a long week for everyone,” Mr. Cuomo added. “It is not over. There are still inconveniences but it could have been a lot, lot worse.”
Staten Island, she acknowledged, “took a particularly hard hit.” She said 1.6 million meals and 7.1 million liters of water had been “positioned” before the storm to be distributed afterward in New York. She said 657 housing inspectors were already at work in New York and 3,200 FEMA employees had been sent to the Northeast.
The financial losses, too, continue to pile up, approaching $50 billion, according to an early estimate from economists at Moody’s Analytics — about $30 billion in property damage, the rest in lost economic activity such as meals and canceled flights.
Other government officials asked for patience, even as they imposed new restrictions: Governor Christie announced an odd-even gas rationing system in 12 New Jersey counties.
But increments of progress, including a second day of limited subway and bus lines, have been made in the aftermath of the hurricane, which made landfall on Monday night as what officials now describe as the worst storm to hit New York. Its punishing floods, rains and wind left millions of people with overwhelming problems they too had likely never faced.
Still, there were some promising developments. Mr. Bloomberg said that “most” of Manhattan would have power again by midnight Friday, although he said that other parts of the city that were still dark — and where electricity comes from overhead lines — would have to wait “a lot longer.” New Jersey Transit started running partial rail service, more of the Metro-North Railroad system came back to life, and the Staten Island Ferry started crisscrossing the harbor again.
Gina Braddish, 27, had four feet of water flood her home in Long Beach, on Long Island, leaving a slick of oil, gasoline and raw sewage across her floors.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said the city had made “great progress,” with service restored to about half of the two million customers who lost electricity during the storm. But his morning briefing hinted at the realities of disaster recovery as he leavened encouragement with caution.
“I have oil slicked on my floors, and they tell me it’s not an emergency,” she said. “When the house blows up, then it’s an emergency. I just want someone to come down here and help.”
He said that turning the power back on in Lower Manhattan would be a “big step forward” for transportation serving the area, but he also said it “did not mean that every light” would work, because electrical systems in some buildings had been damaged.
As the week drew to a close, the widespread shortages disrupted some rescue and emergency services. The effort to secure enough gas for the region moved to the forefront of recovery work.
He said ports would reopen and that tankers carrying gasoline were on the way, so the gas shortages would diminish. He also said he had approved waivers so that fuel tankers would not have to register or pay state taxes, as they normally do — moves he said should speed the distribution of fuel to gas stations. But he offset that announcement with a sober warning: ““It is not going to get better overnight. It is not going to be a one- or two- or three-day situation.”
Mr. Cuomo said that as ports were reopened, the gas shortages should start to ease.
But local officials sprang into action in the meantime. The town of Belleville, in Northern New Jersey, passed an ordinance rationing gas Thursday night that was reminiscent of the 1970s oil embargo. Starting Monday, and until the governor lifts the state of emergency, people whose license plates end in odd numbers can buy gas only on odd numbered dates, and those with even numbers on even numbered dates. The mayor of nearby Montclair suggested to the town council that it consider a similar plan.
In New Jersey, drivers had been waiting in lines that ran hundreds of vehicles deep, requiring state troopers and local police officers to protect against exploding tempers. Some ran out of gas waiting.
At stations that were open, nerves frayed. Fights broke out Thursday at the block-long Hess station on 10th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, forcing the Police Department to send three officers to keep the peace, a police official said. By evening, the police had to close two lanes of the broad thoroughfare to accommodate a line of customers stretching eight blocks, to 37th Street.
Abhishek Soni, the owner of an Exxon in Montclair, N.J., called the police and turned off pumps for 45 minutes to cool nerves when disputes in the line Wednesday night became heated. “My nose, my mouth is bleeding from the fumes,” he said. “The fighting just makes it worse.”
On Friday, the Queens district attorney’s office said a St. Albans man had been arrested after he pointed a pistol at a motorist who complained when he tried to cut a line at a Queens gas station. The man, Sean M. Bailey, 35, was charged with second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and second-degree menacing.
Some have questioned whether the volunteers for the annual marathon, scheduled for Sunday, could be better deployed to assist with disaster relief. The New York Post cover questioned its use of generators.
Earlier on Friday, Mr. Bloomberg said the race should go on, defending the response of his predecessor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He said donations from runners would help.
Earlier, when Mr. Cuomo was asked, he said that it was a decision better left to local officials, but that he understood “both sides.”
Commuters have had to adapt to new rules to get to work with ingenuity and patience. On Friday in New York City, subway trains, which pressed back onto the rails on Thursday, continued with limited service, with downtown trains in Manhattan going as far as 34th Street before stopping because of power problems there.
Leslie Watson, 43, a supervisor for AM New York, said that he took the M train over the F line but that he would normally take the E.
“Yesterday, there were a couple of people from M.T.A. giving out information, but otherwise, like today, you’re on your own,” Mr. Watson said. “Not bad, but not good. My commute was 12 minutes late.” Traveling between Staten Island and Manhattan became a little easier on Friday with the resumption of ferry service.
By midmorning on Friday, long lines grew for the Williamsburg ferry service and they snaked around the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where people boarded shuttle buses to Manhattan to connect with other stops in the transit system. Many adapted, eating breakfast where they stood.
“I am rereading ‘Game of Thrones,’ ” Colin Wiggins, 30, who works in student affairs for CUNY in the northwest Bronx, said as she waited. “I chose this book because I knew I wanted something long and interesting for the next days.”
For Friday’s commute, East River crossings by private passenger car were reportedly slightly more fluid as drivers apparently realized the authorities meant business when they required cars to carry three passengers or more in order to cross into Manhattan. When those rules went into effect on Thursday, cars were turned back if they failed to gather up the required passenger loads, creating the unintended effect of more traffic jams.
Reporting on the storm was contributed by Russ Buettner, Annie Correal, Alison Leigh Cowan, Sheri Fink, Joseph Goldstein, J. David Goodman, Denise Grady, Michael M. Grynbaum, Christine Hauser, Winnie Hu, Randy Leonard, William K. Rashbaum, Ray Rivera, Liz Robbins, Nate Schweber, Michael Schwirtz, Kirk Semple, Stacey Stowe, Rebecca White, Michael Wilson and Vivian Yee.
