Looking Ahead

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis Think of a sea barrier for future Sandys The hurricane named Sandy is still the major interest the T&V neighborhood, since our largest community the ST/PCV area, with 56 residential buildings and 11,250 apartments (25,000 residents) is not fully recovered, and neither is the Wall Street area, our major employer. The combined hurricane and Northwester storm generated a gigantic wave which blew down New York and neighboring state sea shore properties , killed over a hundred innocents and destroyed the lives of thousands.. This was not a new contingency, in the 1938 hurricane floods in New York 60 lives were lost, and we can look back to recent large destructive floods m New Orleans, LA and the entire Gulf, (Katrina,Camilla and Donna . 2005 and after), on the NC barrier islands where the Wright brothers learned to fly (20 destructive storms since 1965), on Dolphin Island with a bridge to Mobile, AL ( destroyed every three years ) and Irene (five deaths in NY, 2011).The recovery funding has been mostly via taxpayer money and subsided insurance. These are all important cases that show the foolishness of building and rebuilding the same homes year after year, sometimes with national flood insurance (highly subsidized) and FEMA (taxpayer subsidy) the main payers. Sometimes, as for Sandy, the homeowner policy writer will argue that the damage is not covered, since it was not caused by wind or rain, and sometimes, through government (Gov. Ciomo ) intervention, the high wind deductible for water damage will be waived. Some taxpayers have balked; certain towns, imn NC have refused property tax increases, as long as rhe usual "repair and break again" rhythm comtiniues. And why should it. Smart comminmities auch as those of Flotida Keys, require that new consrruction be planned several feet above the 100 year water high mark. Homes are being fitted with composite concrete block corners and supports, with the underspace kept uncluttered, for the hurricane raised water to pass through. The marinas, much damaged by the annual hurricanes, some heavy ones conemporaneous witk Katrina, lost their accessability when the storms picked up and carried away the simple wooden walkways. They are being refitted nowadays with heavy planks of a composite material, punched through with holes, to let the owerflow waters recede. Windbreaker planks edging the marinas are being removed, to protect the docks from head-on wave damage, and boat owners are expected to take their craft to higher properties (prearranged rentals available) or storage marinas.This regimentation may be endurable in the Keys, where wave damage has always been a factor and homes have constructed accordingly; in the high priced seacoast communities further north people have sometimes invested heavily in beachfront summer homes, in some cases actually living in them year round, and this suggestion , coming from environmentalist sources, may be an anathema. Even while global warming is happening, and the seas are rising, why should this be “in my life?” To serious people, playing “just one more time” should by now be in the past. Serious planning is necessary particularly in New York, where multistory hausing and business structures are at risk., Granted that the surge from Huricane Sandy was 14 feet high, the most since1938. one must consider that if the wave that Hurricane Irene produced in 2011 had risen one more f oot it would have flooded the subeays. Protection for our downtown New York cannot be provided just by building higher up, the cities have been built at river estuaries since the origins of civilization. Protection for the the apartment buildings and offices requires high cost engineering, phased over the period of several decades. Major European cities have had sea and wave protectors for ages. NYC has had offers from several European firms to build sea barriers; the one protecting the Dutch cities and St. Petersburg envisions barrier walls in the ocean, from the Rockaway Peninsula to Sandy Hook, while a Dutch firm sees a central wall at first, then supported by left and right arms. The cost? Whatever it takes is not bad, considering that Sandy destroyed an estimated $20B of property and 10-30B of business activity. Netherlands, a country the size of VT and NH combined, where 2/3ds of an 16 M population live below sea level, has the most barriers. It also has its maintenance in place, with scheduled work to stop whatever perils can be endangering the structure. This is no longer just a little Dutch boy sticking his finger in the hole and saving a nation, the project is a proof that wave barriers can be effective for ages, even to the extent of reclaiming land. NY needs the barriers just to slow down the sea surge, not to stop it. It might really be a good idea for the environmentalists and the city and state to get to gether, soonest, on a plan; five miles of a barrier wall might save us from more Sandys. Wally Dobelis and the staff of T&V wish a happy belated Thanksgiving to all of our readers

Labels: FEMA, Florida Keys, Netherlands

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis Sandy, cvontinued The hurricane mildly named Sandy is still the overwehelming event for this ST/PCV dominated neigghbourhood. There have been three weeks of post-WWII atmosphere for our placid upper middle class population, of retirees with walking sticks and young people with baby carriages. Our neighborhood, almost suburban in character but better in its green qualities, walkable and cosy, was chosen to be hit by Mother Nature with vengeance not seen since the 1938 Long Island Hurricane (no nice names then). This, despite the relative mildness of Hurricanes Irene in 2011 and Herta in 2008 brought to mind that man is not the ruler of the Universe as we know it. Past experience is not necessarily a forecast of future events, and overwhelming egos bolstered with money cannot buy life in Lucullan luxury on the sunny beach. On the other hand, we also learned that compassion and desire to help others has not died, as evidenced by the Ivy League grads who rolled up their sleeves and helped clean up the destroyed Rockaway and Staten Island fiber board walls and broken floors and ocean refuse washed ashore and ..oh well.. everything. And the nice Gramercy ladies who boughr 500 pairs of socks and underwear to bring to the distressed, and were ashamrd of their good cars (luckily, not polished clean) and Princeton shirts. That is called compassion, and desire to help others, a feeling that is coexistent with the typical NewYorker's desire to earn much and advance fast, a faculty that all of us hasve and that comes out in times of distress. It is the context, when some of the privileged handing out donations to the distressed that brings out the contrast. In the Rockaways, a refuge, some say the society's bad corner, to hide the outcasts, the contrast is so evident to evoke negative feelings. ever so often, when the refugees of Somalia and Sierra Leone and outcasts of Latin America meet the natives. I expected to get some positive stories, even jokes, of good feeling. but none came through in the e-mail Sandy was not like 9/11/2001, when enemy terrorists attacked us, and anger against the bombers was the dominant emotion. One true bitter joke came through,when a squatter in Stuyvesant Square Park watching a Rhode Island nursery truck labeled as hired by Mayor Bloomberg's Committee work, bitterly referred to His Honor as the second best in NYC's history. When I asked to identify the best, he sneered and declared: "everyone else.' justifying his anger by the Mayor's late cancellation of the Newe York Marathon, after the NYM chairman had challenged the appropriatenerss of the event. Other stories:\ A friend, questioned after the lights in midtown T&V area returned (that is not counting our poor SP/PCV area, which suffered longer and still continues to be be in some darkness, along the Avenure C perimeter) self-demeaningly declared that the event was sufferable, although Scotch whiskey after October 31 was too warm, but he managed to survive with a gin and Blaody Mary mix. Upon further questioning, the stoic –admitted that he had a dozen eggs and some cans of soup, and the use of the gas oven. For news he had the telephone – the old dial-up unit worked but the push button portable died. He offered one rule ,pertinent to blackout sufferers ; “do not look for the portable radio after dark,” but was able to find flashlights, for emergency. The commentator, who is also a Luddite, refusing to acknowledge the role of TV and Internet in our lives , also managed to walk up and down the stairs several times, for food when life returned to the neighbourhood, so the locked-up feeling that most highriser inhabitants suffered , was not his complaint. This rejection of Internet and e-mail is not unusual in our up-to-date T&V area. Among retirees, anger towards Internet is not uncommon, and many retireees, who used the digital systems in their business lives, find a distinct relief in shedding the shackles of technology. Nevetheless, even those opponents often eventually invest in an unit, to keep in touch with the kids, and correspondence, in a polite format. Of course , then comes the digital phone with texting, an even more repulsive intruder, with its terse abbreviation-ridden formant, so there’s no real escape from the rudeness the 21st Century. One commentator, preservationist Jack Taylor, offered another rule: ‘”do not build above the 4th Floor,” a recommendation I do not quite know how to respond to, not having lived that low ever, except for holidays.He also brought out another proof of the old technology coming to rescue of the new environment, his 1956 Olivetti typewriter, dated in Glasgow, 1956. from the authorized purveyer to HRH the Duke of Edinburgh. Wally Dobelis also thanks New York Times, the old reliable.

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis Post-election wishes and Sandy comments This is a message of best wishes to President Barack Obama, and a prayer. How can any man, mild Barry or harsh Mitt, expect to steer the world to survival, in the pervasive atmosphere of the concurrent crises, actually catastrophies, of internal economic recession, Mideastern terrors, European collapse and , above all, the longterm fatal to Planet Earth climate change? The prayer is for our internal strife to come to its senses, and the Mitch McConnell and Grover Norquist types, who destroyed the recovery attempts for two years , and the righteous leftwing Democrats who want a few more tax bucks from the plutos , come to an agreement in the interests of the social compact, the source of humanities’ survival and progress since the Neandertals turned domestic (look it up, google Hobbes, Locke).There are ways of compromise without rubbing the adversaries noses in dirt, such as using cuts of certain tax exemptions for revenue fromhigh income earners. The political scene stands in contrast to the wonderful humanitarian effort and the cooperation of neighbors we see in the coping with and in the curing of the wounds of hurricane Sandy and its Northwester baby brother. Some signs of good sense and return to sanity good emerge when a Conservative stalwart, like publisher Christopher Ruddy of the Newsmax corporation, analyses the sources of the GOP defeat. To begin, he lists the easy excuses, such as the two hurricanes, starting with the Tampa storms of late August, bumping off star speaker Marco Rubio, dutto Mitt Romney’s sypathetic biography, and allowing the injecting of Clint Eastwood’s inanities. But Mitt recovered in the first Denver debate in October, and held, until Sandy, on October 29, gave the President a chance to show leadership . Ruddy calls Gov. Chris Christie’s gratitude a treachery [btw, where does that place the McConnell and Norquist actions?], but has other , more weighty reasons to demean the Republican campaign. No.1, the Romney choice of inexperienced Paul Ryan for VP, almost unexplicable, and showing lack of political wisdom.. No. 2 was the Ryan Budget Plan, abolishing Medicare in 10 years.. When Romney realized his error and downplayed Ryan, it was too late . [Incidentally, there are polls showing 55% vote for Romney among older white men and women, as opposed to Obama’s dominance with over 50% votes in all other demographic and ethnic catergories, which seem to point to generational selfishness . Sort of like après moi la deluge, hein? Again, think of the social compact]. No. 3 mistake, energizing the conservative base vote, instead of the middle (sometimes called the “Clinton Democrats”), seems like preaching to the choir. No. 4, the absence of a plan, a promise of 12 Million jobs without the “how to” information, is a bit much for even the conservatives, as is No.5, a crushing optimism, reminding the rational Republican voters of the grand tax cutting schemes, from Jack Kemp to Newt Gingrich. Christopher Ruddy ends with regretting the absence of hard rhetoric, the kind Romney used against Gingrich, and is appalled at the dissing of Hispanics. Whether this realistic attitude will prevail among the social Conservatives, cooling the no-tax and religious extremists, is questionable. Certainly the Liberals seem determined not to let Obama give any way in what is turning into a “soak the rich” credo. The ultimate threat, “falling off the cliff” at NewYear’s, increasing and then selectively reducing taxes is too histrionic for this aging country, but it may come to that, alas But if anyone listens to my 60 years experience in risk analysis and consensus-forming, a compromise requires total effort of refraining from demeaning the opponent, of guilt making, and a requirement to find items of consensus, making the stubborn opponent a co-author. It can work in settling US budget, and Iran’s A-bomb, if the fear of the of the shiite ayatollahs from the 1B sunni muslims can be stilled. It is very simple if the Iranians stop nuclear development, we promise that Arab League will stop asking for their own nukes,As TR said, be humble but carry a big stick.I sometimes think I am living in a world of ignorants and those unwilling to rearn, a return to Neanderthal era. W. J. Clinton is a great president and post-president because he learned these family relationship clues while still in 8th grade. . Back to Sandy. Besides the national political im pact and the tremendous destructive effects in NJ, Staten Island and the Rockaways, Sandy has hugely affected T&V Country. Stuy Town/PCV are still suffering outages, particularly along Avenue C, all in purported safe Zone B territory, that will take much time and heartaches to repair.The loss includes the destruction of hundreds of automobiles in the ST garages. My car died in Garage 5, when it was overwhelmed by a six-foot wave on October 29. The owner, QuikPark, was not answering phone calls, the garage phone registered “busy” and still is, and no positive information was available until we personally visited on Election Day, to verify the bad news. Allstate ‘s affirmation and acceptance of a claim-by- phone report came November 8, and I retrieved my papers and license plates a day later (the garage workers were very cooperative and wore paper breathing masks, to prevent inhaling the mold spores) Traveling back and forth –I had to supply an Allen wrenth to retrieve the plates – I learned from other tenants about the 1993 flood, a much more shallow one, and of Geico inspectors writing on-the-spot claim checks (not verified). None were seen, but a Travelers’ man estimated total car loss from Sandy as 250,000 vehicles, 20,000 for his company and equal amounts for Allstate, State Farm and Geico, for starters. Waiting for the 14 Street bus, I got to talk with ConEd workers from the huge plant across from the garage, and heard that maybe 200 electric motors – elevator, pump, other utility - have been flooded in the downtown area, and there are no lights (zero, nada) in the Wall Street community, particularly alown Water Street. I know for a fact that a major insurance company had five feet of water in its lobby, flooding all the utilities, mechanical and electronic, and has shut its offices for two months They are trying to connect incoming phone calls to employees’ homes, wher technicians try to work on home gear, accessing data bases in safe out-of- town backup facilities. This slow-down of our world-power financial community is not advertised, and people are working 24/7 to clear salt water residues from sensitive equipment , to get us up as soon as possible. We will survive and prevail, and the T&V working people will soon be able to take the recovered subway trains to their Wall Street jobs. Those who deny global warming do not belong in our government , Many thanks to the East Greenwich Garden people and their cherrypicker from Rhode Island, who came to help clean up NYC two weeks ago, currently clearing up .Stuyvesant Square Park tree damage. I’ll do Sandy stories later, send some to wally@ix.netcom.com.

Labels: Allstate, Arab nukes, automobile destroyed, automobile drowned, hurricane, Obama, Sandy, Stuyvesant Town garageIran nukes.

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobeli Devastating hurricane Sandy On the afternoon of Monday, September, 29, Sandy the hurricane put out the electric lights in Lower Manhattan, from about 30th Street o, leaving the T&V country in total darkness, partly lifted on Thursday September 1. As of this writing Stuyvesant Town /PCV is only partly lit, and hot water and heat cannot be expected to be fully restore before Sunday Nov.11, if then. Sandy destroyed parts of each borough, and killed local population, particularly in Staten Island, where people were slow to move into shelters, and really crippled New Jersey. Tis is the worst storm since the 1938 New England hurricane (that was before the cute naming convention), far exceeding those of 1992, 2002, 2008 Hanna and even the 2011 Irene. I am writing these lines on Sunday, with a deadline on Tuesday, two days before the Presidential Election, and using the voting statistics, we can say that some seven states (VA, PA, WV, MD, NJ, NC, OH) have suffered electric system damages that will affect the election outcome. NY and FL have paper ballot alternatives, with optical scanners to automate the counting in their damaged districts. OCRs have been found to be unreliable and error prone in some instances, so we may look forward to a slow validation, unless the balloting results are really overwhelmingly one-sided. A call to ACLU in DC, to find whether the citizen groups plan an action to secure a delay brought in a request for my deadline info, so there may be some action forthcoming. At least one legal opinion, from Heritage Foundation, finds that the President cannot extend the time, but what about the Supreme Court? Stay tuned. Anyway, in preparation for the blackout, we bought extra Dcells for the portable radio, and AA batteries for four or five small flashlights, plus some food (the gas stove was expected to function, and it did), and gallon bottles of drinking water. filled the bathtub, remembering Mayor Koch’s favorite line for past water shortages, “if it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down.” Believe me, this hunkering down and waiting the storm out was nerve-racking, and WNYC, though we love it, is tiring on 24/7 basis. Looking out the window on near empty streets, locked up stores, with no cars moving is spooky and reminds one of those horror movies of ragged humans surviving the Apocalypse. Ditto, walking on pitch black hallways and stairs for exercise, saying hello to inquisitive floor mates, flashlight in hand, clutching the banister. In two days three neighbor ladies knocked at the door, inquiring about our health, and about borrowing batteries and bath water. We declined the opportunity for a joint expedition outside, the 300 steps down, and then back up would be too much. We were prisoners of our high riser, and shuddered thinking of the people in the real 52 story skyscrapers near Carnegie Hall, where the broken construction gear hanging down threatened the entire neighborhood. Fortunately, in Brooklyn our athletic son found a way to drive across the East River and take us, our two cats and suitcases down the stairs. We borrowed the car and drove upstate to our cabin near Albany, which lost five trees to Hurricane Irene in 2011, worrying about broken pines on the road. But it was fine and the storm had barely touched, and the heat came on, as did the TV, although the news was scary. Only Governor Chris Christy and President Barak Obama, in one brief human moment, made it possible to dream that maybe some day soon there will be a United States with cooperation and compassion, instead of political parties , like jungle animals, baring their teeth at each other and crouching in the jungle , ready to leap at each other. The Star Wars-type term “garbage planet Earth” came up somewhere, reminding one that there are people who sacrifice the health of this one and only universe we have, for short-term profit. The old Gov Mitt Romney knew it, but now he has forgotten. And the animals in the jungle are ready to cut Christie’s throat. About the same time, call it the brief rebirth of humanity say, the lights came back in my high riser, and in a lot more of lower Manhattan. Alas, no heat and hot water, as announced by ConEd, maybe not until November 11. Alas, there were no lights in poor suffering Stuyvesant Town, where the Avenue C-side garage holds the family car, inaccessible. Worse, we known not whether it was destroyed by a high wave washing into ST/PCV, rated Zone B, the garage company , heard from via SP?PCV bulletin on the internet now recommends advising the insurance company. Incidentally, this series of events recommends everybody, even not company- literate elders, get on Internet. E-mail is child’s play, compared to iPhone, and it retains records. If your apartment management does not recommend it, they are negligent fools, and if you do not accept it and act accordingly, you are worse. It is self defense, we live in perilous times and if you do not defend yourself with instant information, offered free, you can become a burden to society. The Staten Island and Jersey Shore people who did not heed and take care of themselves and evacuate, have themselves to blame. Screaming at society when your neglect brought on the suffering is wrong. Good luck to the President elected on Nov. 6, and may we all again learn to live with each other, and let social benefit be the guiding light.

Labels: Obama, Sandy. Chris Christy

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobeli Devastating hurricane brings good hopes for the Presidency On the afternoon of Monday, September, 29, Sandy the hurricane put out the electric lights in Lower Manhattan, from about 30th Street o, leaving the T&V country in total darkness, partly lifted on Thursday September 1. As of this writing Stuyvesant Town /PCV is only partly lit, and hot water and heat cannot be expected to be fully restore before Sunday Nov.11, if then. Sandy destroyed parts of each borough, and killed local population, particularly in Staten Island, where people were slow to move into shelters, and really crippled New Jersey. Tis is the worst storm since the 1938 New England hurricane (that was before the cute naming convention), far exceeding those of 1992, 2002, 2008 Hanna and even the 2011 Irene. I am writing these lines on Sunday, with a deadline on Tuesday, two days before the Presidential Election, and using the voting statistics, we can say that some seven states (VA, PA, WV, MD, NJ, NC, OH) have suffered electric system damages that will affect the election outcome. NY and FL have paper ballot alternatives, with optical scanners to automate the counting in their damaged districts. OCRs have been found to be unreliable and error prone in some instances, so we may look forward to a slow validation, unless the balloting results are really overwhelmingly one-sided. A call to ACLU in DC, to find whether the citizen groups plan an action to secure a delay brought in a request for my deadline info, so there may be some action forthcoming. At least one legal opinion, from Heritage Foundation, finds that the President cannot extend the time, but what about the Supreme Court? Stay tuned. Anyway, in preparation for the blackout, we bought extra Dcells for the portable radio, and AA batteries for four or five small flashlights, plus some food (the gas stove was expected to function, and it did), and gallon bottles of drinking water. filled the bathtub, remembering Mayor Koch’s favorite line for past water shortages, “if it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down.” Believe me, this hunkering down and waiting the storm out was nerve-racking, and WNYC, though we love it, is tiring on 24/7 basis. Looking out the window on near empty streets, locked up stores, with no cars moving is spooky and reminds one of those horror movies of ragged humans surviving the Apocalypse. Ditto, walking on pitch black hallways and stairs for exercise, saying hello to inquisitive floor mates, flashlight in hand, clutching the banister. In two days three neighbor ladies knocked at the door, inquiring about our health, and about borrowing batteries and bath water. We declined the opportunity for a joint expedition outside, the 300 steps down, and then back up would be too much. We were prisoners of our high riser, and shuddered thinking of the people in the real 52 story skyscrapers near Carnegie Hall, where the broken construction gear hanging down threatened the entire neighborhood. Fortunately, in Brooklyn our athletic son found a way to drive across the East River and take us, our two cats and suitcases down the stairs. We borrowed the car and drove upstate to our cabin near Albany, which lost five trees to Hurricane Irene in 2011, worrying about broken pines on the road. But it was fine and the storm had barely touched, and the heat came on, as did the TV, although the news was scary. Only Governor Chris Christy and President Barak Obama, in one brief human moment, made it possible to dream that maybe some day soon there will be a United States with cooperation and compassion, instead of political parties , like jungle animals, baring their teeth at each other and crouching in the jungle , ready to leap at each other. The Star Wars-type term “garbage planet Earth” came up somewhere, reminding one that there are people who sacrifice the health of this one and only universe we have, for short-term profit. The old Gov Mitt Romney knew it, but now he has forgotten. And the animals in the jungle are ready to cut Christie’s throat. About the same time, call it the brief rebirth of humanity say, the lights came back in my high riser, and in a lot more of lower Manhattan. Alas, no heat and hot water, as announced by ConEd, maybe not until November 11. Alas, there were no lights in poor suffering Stuyvesant Town, where the Avenue C-side garage holds the family car, inaccessible. Worse, we known not whether it was destroyed by a high wave washing into ST/PCV, rated Zone B, the garage company , heard from via SP?PCV bulletin on the internet now recommends advising the insurance company. Incidentally, this series of events recommends everybody, even not company- literate elders, get on Internet. E-mail is child’s play, compared to iPhone, and it retains records. If your apartment management does not recommend it, they are negligent fools, and if you do not accept it and act accordingly, you are worse. It is self defense, we live in perilous times and if you do not defend yourself with instant information, offered free, you can become a burden to society. The Staten Island and Jersey Shore people who did not heed and take care of themselves and evacuate, have themselves to blame. Screaming at society when your neglect brought on the suffering is wrong. Good luck to the President elected on Nov. 6, and may we all again learn to live with each other, and let social benefit be the guiding light.