Thread: Staten Island's Storm Victim Town Hall Turns Into Yelling Match

Staten Island's Storm Victim Town Hall Turns Into Yelling Match

By ERICA PITZIpix11.com | @erica_pitzi11:14 p.m. EST, November 29, 2012


STATEN ISLAND, NY (PIX11)—

"I have a question!" yelled a man from the crowd in the back of the New Dorp High School auditorium.

"If you have a question, write it down on a card," retorted a government official from the stage.

Tensions between those onstage and off rose quickly.

FEMA explained that they have more than 18,000 Staten Islanders registered for help; and they say they have given out more than $41million toward home repairs.

But inside the packed auditorium, where there was standing room only, the storm victims did not want to hear it.

"Lies!" yelled people from their seats.

An hour into the Town Hall Meeting, it turned into an all out yelling match.

"No one is doing what's right for us!" screamed one woman fromNew Dorp Beach.

"You're a piece of crap!" yelled another man in the crowd.

As the meeting got out of control, Staten Island Borough President Jim Molinaro lashed out at the crowd.

"You wanna shut your mouth?" Molinaro chastised into the microphone, adding, "before your brain is engaged?"

The crowd yelled back at him an emphatic, "No!"

At that moment, question cards were tossed as people got up from their seats and lined up in the aisles for their chance at the microphone.

"You say, we are all family. Well, we need you to stick with us. Don't run around and pass the buck, from the FEMA guy to Department of Buildings guy. Help us, answer our questions," begged one New Dorp Beach woman.

Emotionally exhausted, hundreds of people turned out for the meeting, some even took off from work. They came to the meeting with so many questions still unanswered one month afterSuperstorm Sandy slammed into Staten Island.

PIX 11 met Scott and Deirdre McGrath shortly after they gutted their New Dorp Beach home to protect against mold caused by the storm.

"I'm homeless," Deirdre said when it was her turn at the microphone, adding, "My home has no gas, water, sewage, but yet I'm still sleeping in there. I have dust and mold that he [Department of Health NYC] is telling me to avoid, where am I supposed to go? I've gone to FEMA, SBA, apartments.com, Robert Defalco Realty. I've gone to news, I still cannot find an apartment, where am I supposed to live?"

The FEMA rep told The McGraths, they have to look at their specific case.

A likely response, say many of these folks of an agency they say, has been less than responsive in Sandy's aftermath.

After their private meeting with FEMA, the McGraths told PIX 11 that they didn't make any progress.

"They gave us a list of apartments on Staten Island. Just paperwork was all they gave me. No answers. So, we are still in the same boat," said Scott, shaking his head.

His wife Deirdre said simply, "I feel just as lost as I did before I came here."

http://www.wpix.com/news/wpix-staten-islands-storm-victim-town-hall-turns-into-yelling-match-20121129,0,3094499.story


TOWN HALL MEETING AT NEW DORP HIGH SCHOOL CLIP#1.m4v

Dan Lohaus

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Published on Nov 30, 2012 by Dan Lohaus
At the "Town Hall" Meeting at The New Dorp High School last night (11/29/12), Staten Island residents hit hardest by Sandy were fed up after about an hour of introductions, canned speeches and lack of information from local politicians, officials, and FEMA representatives. Although resident were told to submit their questions on note cards, FEMA officials chose which ones would be answered. Finally, people were fed up and demanded to be heard. This is the first woman to speak and the first of many more clips to come.
TOWN HALL MEETING AT NEW DORP HIGH SCHOOL CLIP#1.m4v - YouTube

FEMA doesn't have a very good track record.

Cordova, Alabama Blames FEMA For Slow Tornado Response
​By JAY REEVES
11/18/12





CORDOVA, Ala. — Main Street in this old mill town looks about the same as it did the day after tornadoes killed about 250 people across Alabama a year and a half ago: Battered red bricks and broken glass litter the pavement, and the buildings still standing are rickety and roofless.

The entire one-block downtown, still deemed unsafe, remains sealed off by a chain-link fence. City officials blame the Federal Emergency Management Agency, saying the money to demolish skeletons of the old buildings is mired in miles of red tape.

When one request for photos or historical documentation is met, FEMA makes another, the mayor and others in this town of 2,100 say. One crop of workers is replaced by another, forcing locals to constantly explain their problems to new people.

"It's very frustrating," said Mayor Drew Gilbert, a 25-year-old Cordova native who served on the City Council before taking office this month. "You would think it's been touched and seen now by everyone who needs to touch and see it."
On April 27, 2011, dozens of tornadoes ripped across the southeast, spawned by freakish weather. Hundreds were killed and thousands of homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed, causing more than $1 billion in damage.
While cleanup and demolition projects are moving along in devastated communities like Tuscaloosa and Hackleburg – where wrecked homes and businesses are mostly gone and new ones are slowly being built – Cordova's downtown stands out as an eerie reminder of the destruction.

FEMA officials say they're only doing their job in Cordova, documenting damaged buildings and covering all the details before providing money to tear them down.

"This project involves demolition of multiple historically significant structures and requires that FEMA consider all pertinent environmental and historic preservation laws before funding the project," the agency said in response to questions from The Associated Press.

Yet the process has been baffling not just for local residents but to the head of historic preservation for the state, Elizabeth Brown.

"I think FEMA needs to give their people in the field more latitude," said Brown, preservation officer for the Alabama Historical Commission. "It seems things have to keep going back up the chain."

Brown said the demolition process seems to be taking longer than usual in Cordova, but government rules don't set out a strict timetable for such decisions since needs and damage can vary so greatly from one place to another. Town leaders say FEMA has never given them a firm timetable.

Located in coal country about 35 miles northwest of Birmingham, Cordova began in the 1880s at a spot where two railroad lines converged. A textile mill operated in town for about seven decades before closing in 1962.

The mill's failure displaced 800 workers and sent Cordova into a tailspin. Most of the 19 or so buildings in the downtown block were vacant and deteriorating by the time the twisters struck last year.

Many people left town for work in metro Birmingham or nearby Jasper before the twisters, and there are even fewer jobs in Cordova now aside from schools, a bank, a pharmacy and a health clinic. The town's sole grocery store was wiped out and has yet to reopen; a convenience store near the battered downtown block has closed, too.

Cordova Fire Chief Dean Harbison, who also serves as the town's recovery coordinator, said FEMA was helpful at first.
"They've provided us some money," Harbison said. "But as far as recovery, they've slowed us down."
A long-term plan sponsored by FEMA initially recommended reclaiming downtown Cordova, but Haribson said an in-depth examination revealed major structural problems and city officials decided to demolish the entire block.
The mix of privately and publicly owned buildings with shared walls and varying amounts of damage proved confusing.

"You'd think they've encountered that before," Gilbert said. "But it's been a problem."

Town leaders didn't anticipate historical considerations being the main roadblock to demolition because the damaged buildings weren't on state or national historic registers, but FEMA started asking for photos and reports documenting the buildings' past and architecture, Harbison said.

After two rounds of requests and a conference call, FEMA finally sent its own photographer to document what's left of the city on Oct. 29, he said.

"They're saying they should be finished with the review by Jan. 4," said Harbison. That means no decision will be made on whether to fund the demolition will be made for at least two more months, he said, and the two-year anniversary of the tornadoes could pass with the fractured buildings still looming over Cordova.

It's hard to come or go from the town without driving past the decimated area, and the mayor said the sight is a mental barrier to moving the city forward. Three fires have burned in the damaged area since the tornadoes – one accidental, two suspected arsons, including one in which two people were charged – and the blazes further weakened structures blasted by the twisters.

Gilbert said the rickety buildings stand in an area that could become a home for new businesses now that a new four-lane highway linking Birmingham and Memphis, Tenn., runs just a few miles from the city, but that can't happen until the old ones are demolished. The struggling city can't afford the estimated $933,000 cost of demolishing the structures, he said, so it's counting on FEMA to fill the gap.

"Our entire economy is gone, and it's like they're just doing nothing," said Gilbert.
FEMA spokesman Danon Lucas said that's not true.

"I know the city looks at it as delays, but we have been working through the process that's required," he said. "This doesn't happen often. Demolition like this isn't a regular occurrence."

No other Alabama city has had the same problem since the twisters, Brown said. While it took about a year to approve the demolition of the high school in the northwest Alabama town of Phil Campbell because of historical considerations, Cordova is in a league of its own, she said.

"I can't blame them for being frustrated with FEMA," she said.

Cordova, Alabama Blames FEMA For Slow Tornado Response

It appears that the Sandy victims are getting the FEMA baffle them with BS routine, a common tactic in this administration it seems, that these people in Alabama have been receiving for a year and a half. JMO