n e S a n d y , c o n t i n u e d .
An unprecedented life sustainment and humanitarian mission began in mid- November. The National Guard and volunteers, with support of City agencies, visited every residential unit in the impacted areas. Teams handed out information, food, water, heaters and blankets. As it got colder those impacted were offered warmer places to stay, such as hotel rooms. Residents were checked on multiple times until their homes had heat and power. In all, the teams made some 140,000 visits.
Lastly, more than 19,000 homes have had power and heat restored at no cost to the homeowner through an innovative program called NYC Rapid Repairs, which has allowed many of those affected by Sandy to remain in their homes and begin rebuilding their lives where they lived before Sandy’s destruction upended them.
Sandy taught all of us that major catastrophes, whether natural or man-made, will present challenges of enormous proportion. Being prepared for the unknown occurring under inconceivable pressure is what we all need to expect. Getting big enough fast enough is the goal. In order to be able to accomplish this goal, we in the emergency management field along with our agencies, elected leaders and partners in and out of government need to establish the mechanisms and have in place structures, locations and technology that can be flipped on as quickly as needed to become large enough to pay attention to the emerging issues and solve them. We need also to have the relationships, agreements and acceptance from our colleagues that this planning is essential, potentially to our survival.
The storm surge and high winds led to an enormous loss of power across the five boroughs of New York City. Over 700,000 customers lost power across the five boroughs. The storm’s impact on our power system was so pervasive that it destroyed existing power capability in a significant number of hospitals, nursing homes, adult care facilities, public housing residences and beyond to the level that restoration would require much more than simply getting the utilities back up and running. It would require tedious, time-consuming and difficult rebuilding of the electrical systems within almost all of the flooded basements of these structures.
Debris immediately became a big issue. It was strewn across streets, on private property, in parks and public places, on beaches and in our waterways. More than 40,000 buildings and homes were destroyed or severely damaged and many others burned to the ground. Some residences would have to be completely demolished. More than 20,000 trees and limbs were knocked down throughout the city; 200,000 cubic yards of sand washed from the beaches into the streets and neighborhoods, and 3,500 cars and boats were destroyed. To date more than 2 million cubic yards of debris was generated by Sandy’s impact. To put that in perspective, it took only 62,000 cubic yards of concrete to build NYC’s iconic Empire State Building.
I am convinced from our work in New York City during Sandy, and from the lessons we have learned and will learn, that governments along with all of their partners and supporters can meet the massive and multifaceted challenges of high-impact events with a massive and organized response and recovery effort. It will all start with the activations of the substantial operational plans that already exist and the opening of the Emergency Operations Centers extant in all of the major population centers around our country. The effort will be coordinated by the fiercely resilient and innovative emergency managers who have the training and skills to think and act big when needed. We can and will get big enough fast enough to protect those in our charge. We have no alternative.
Joseph F. Bruno Commissioner of the New York City Office of Emergency Management.
Joseph F. Bruno was appointed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in March 2004.
>
19
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40