The pictures from New Orleans after Katrina were iconic. Stories breathlessly filed from the Superdome warned of rampant crimes, inadequate access to basic sanitation, even babies getting raped (which was later proven to be a rumor). CNN’s Anderson Cooper berated Senator Mary Landrieu on air about the government’s response to the storm. Spike Lee made an entire documentary about the impact the hurricane had on the city and its residents. Famously, during a telethon for Katrina’s victims, rapper Kanye West told viewers, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
The week before the election, Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast, bringing unprecedented destruction to the seaside communities in the tri-state area. Parts of New York City went dark, as sections of the city were completely submerged in flood waters for the first time in modern history. Seaside towns across the Jersey Shore lost their famous boardwalks in an instant, and in Seaside Heights, parts of a roller coaster ended up sucked into the ocean.
After several days of dominating the news cycle, the nation moved on to the election, and now, to the unfolding scandal involving CIA Director David Petraeus. For those left in the worst of Sandy’s wake, no matter what CNN may be covering, few have had the ability to move on. The local New York City-centric blog Gothamist describes the situation in The Rockaways area of Queens:
“The city hasn’t reached out to us at all,” said Matt Calender, a Rockaway resident who helps direct a bustling relief effort from a house on Beach 96th Street. “The Red Cross gave us 500 blankets the other day. FEMA talked to us. But that’s it. We station volunteers here, but we also send people downtown, where there is immense need. If people come here we can actually give them something to do.”
After Katrina, President George W. Bush was lambasted for FEMA’s response to the storm. Those aware of the situation in Far Rockaway and other hard-hit areas of New York know that the situation isn’t much different than New Orleans post-Katrina. New York City Councilman James Sanders, who represents the Rockaways, gave a chilling interview to a Boston NPR affiliate, stating:
“FEMA did not arrive in a timely fashion, nor did the Red Cross,” Richards said. “If it wasn’t for everyday citizens coming out and giving us a hand, the Rockaways would be in a shape that is unfathomable.”
Richards said that FEMA didn’t arrive until last Thursday, and he says the agency initially set up in an area that was inaccessible to poorer residents.
“Every 24 hours that goes by, we get into a more desperate situation so FEMA has to respond quicker. I know we have a billion things to do but in a low-income area with 30 percent of the people on some sort of income subsidy we need them to move fast and move now,” Richards said.
FEMA was unavailable for comment.
Electricity is starting to return to the Rockaways, but many homes still lack heat and hot water. Gasoline is still in short supply.
“We’re running into a desperate situation, especially as winter starts to greet us,” Richards said. “[Our residents] are still sleeping in the cold – many of our children, our elderly! And not only is it cold, but they’re sleeping in wet apartments.”
Richards says the situation in public housing has also been dire. He said a 77-year-old man died on Saturday, because he fell down an unlit staircase. He is also concerned that many crimes may have gone unreported, because communication has been spotty with the New York City Housing Authority.
“No one will know how many rapes have happened in the Rockaways, how many burglaries, how many murders. No one will have accurate information on these things until months pass by after this post-Sandy era disappears,” Richards said.
Rabbi Shay Schachter, assistant rabbi at the Rockaways’ “White Shul” told me about the dire straits his community was in in the first nine days after the storm struck. FEMA only arrived the following Tuesday after the storm and initially had to rely on local relief groups like the Long Island JCC for information. Rabbi Schachter had been running groups of local students and volunteers into three 17-story buildings in his community, filled largely with poor and elderly residents. He told me that when they first arrived five days after the storm bringing food and water to residents “[they] looked at us like they haven’t seen food in five years.” Schachter was asked by many residents about how they could receive medical attention, medication and access to dialysis machines while trapped in their highrise apartments without working elevators. Before FEMA took over the building’s care a full ten days after the storm hit, one FEMA official told Schachter that he was certain they would find dead bodies inside, as elderly residents inside had no heat, food, or medical care.
After the storm, before the election, the only public discussion regarding FEMA centered around Mitt Romney’s statements during a GOP primary debate, which were misinterpreted and misrepresented to suggest he wanted to abolish FEMA. Romney came under fire for the remarks and unfortunately, as Jonathan pointed out the day before the election, little political attention has been paid to FEMA’s undeniably slow response to Sandy. The logic of Romney’s suggestion that FEMA cannot (and has not in the past) promptly offer relief to victims of natural and man-made disasters in the U.S. has yet to be discussed in the media or by government officials. More than two weeks after the storm, the situation is growing increasingly dire for residents of the Rockaways as temperatures plummet.
With the media’s silence and the public’s amnesia over the impact of the hurricane, President Obama has once again received a free pass on yet another issue of national importance. The media’s outcry over the devastation after Katrina led to a massive influx of aid in the form of governmental agency involvement, subsidies, and private charitable organizations’ assistance. Without that outcry, the victims of Sandy should be wondering what kind of attention they would be receiving if the president’s party began with an R, not a D.
The media does not care a fig about American citizens beyond how they can be used to further the Liberal agenda. r nr nKatrina/Sandy; the Tea Party; the Federal Deficit/ the Nation Debt; the crumbling unsustainable entitlement programs, illegal immigration, even the need to establish English as the National Language. To the extent these and others issues have aspects about them that do not reflect well on the Liberal agenda they are essentially ignored by the networks (except by FOX in some cases) and by the national press.r nr nJonah Goldberg discusses in his latest book The Tyranny of Cliches how Progressives have essential no use for the US Constitution except as it help further their agenda. The way the media treats the First Amendment provides a first class example of his point.r nr nI wonder how the voting patterns in the precincts affected by Hurricane Sandy this year are different from what they were four years ago and what they will be four years from now. I strongly imagine the answer is essentially negligible in almost all cases. Without an objective presentation of the facts regardless of the political fallout there cannot an objective discussion of problems affecting us and what we can do about them.
The media does not care a fig about American citizens beyond how they can be used to further the Liberal agenda. n nKatrina/Sandy; the Tea Party; the Federal Deficit/ the Nation Debt; the crumbling unsustainable entitlement programs, illegal immigration, even the need to establish English as the National Language. To the extent these and others issues have aspects about them that do not reflect well on the Liberal agenda they are essentially ignored by the networks (except by FOX in some cases) and by the national press. n nJonah Goldberg discusses in his latest book The Tyranny of Cliches how Progressives have essential no use for the US Constitution except as it help further their agenda. The way the media treats the First Amendment provides a first class example of his point. n nI wonder how the voting patterns in the precincts affected by Hurricane Sandy this year are different from what they were four years ago and what they will be four years from now. I strongly imagine the answer is essentially negligible in almost all cases. Without an objective presentation of the facts regardless of the political fallout there cannot an objective discussion of problems affecting us and what we can do about them.
"The media does not care a fig about American citizens beyond how they can be used to further the Liberal agenda. " n nNot unlike President Obama, which is why they get along so well. n n
and, it's not just the Rockaways. Coastal Brooklyn and most of the south shore of Long island, where Marines had to use amphibious landing craft. n nFEMA mostly co-ordinates. n nThis is Bloomberg's, and, Cuomo's Katrina. Plus, Cuomo has LIPA to answer for. n nI have tried every way I could think of to offer a furnished apt in north Bronx since Oct 30. nNot even realtors in New York are helping, as they are doing in New Jersey. n nThe media lost interest with white people suffering. It was only when Rep Meeks talked about the public housing in Rockaways that CNN decided to keep at it.
While there is reason to focus on FEMA, it's a bit misdirected–as it was at the time of Katrina. FEMA is not a first responder agency, it's a check-writing agency for disaster recovery. n nMore focus and emphasis and criticism on the local–city and state government–response is warranted. As the article demonstrates, the relief volunteers have organically organized themselves to aid their community. This is not something FEMA, or any other government agency, is capable of doing, nor will it ever be capable of doing so–governments conscript and coerce. n nWhere are the city and state emergency management operations? The city ordered evacuations from zone A, where is the follow-up? Food, shelter, etc. Crime and looting? Where is the state national guard? Is the national guard patroling hard hit areas to prevent looting and other predations of the vulnerable so as to free up NYPD from the added load caused by Sandy? Was the Guard called in to do home-to-home checks in high rises without power? n nThis is Bloomberg's and Cuomo's Katrina.
Bethany, if this is multiple choice , I'll take (A) – "Because we are cursed with a press that is unwilling to publish the truth if it reflects poorly on Obama, or if it reflects well on Romney or GW Bush." n nWas that the right answer?
Why? That should be obvious. Since Sandy the only thing the news carries is one show after another with a round table of self professed liberals chanting that the one reason Romney lost was that the GOP isn't further to the left…..of the Democrats.
I think it is worth pondering the larger picture, too. This is why we lost last week, folks. Somehow Republicans have to break through the media firewall that protects Democrats. We just learned how unbelievably effective the media is in that mission. I, for one, certainly didn't appreciate their strength. Foolishly, I thought Americans had seen through the liberal bias.
I dont see how that will happen soon. The dumbing down of America continues.
I shall repost what I said immediately after the election: n n"What the media want the media will get so long as their pursuit of what they want is concerted and goes on long enough. n n"THAT is the sort of country we live in today. THAT is much more frightening than a polarized electorate or a conflict between takers and makers. Issues don't matter at all, only opinions; and the only opinions that matter are those of the press, television, and film. . . . n n"The SOLE corrective to the problem is an adequately educated electorate." n nThe state of education in a country where, depending on the grade level, 70–85% of students 18 or younger attend public schools, is too grim to contemplate. As with Katrina, the media's preferred narrative on Sandy has already been successfully communicated ACROSS THE NATION. The story will NOT receive a second look except by local news in New York and New Jersey. Perhaps in a year or two or three, we are in for a wistful sort of retrospective about how well bomber jackets stand up to pelting rain and high wind. We have that to look forward to. n nWatching the media operate in the Sandy story was like watching a school of herrings "gyre and gimbel in the wabe." What they produced, in other words, is an eighth stanza to "Jabberwocky": Obama the Savior. And "all mimsy were the borogroves," too, damn straight! There is not a scintilla of reality to it, but who's watching any longer or enough to care? The media swam together for as long as was necessary and not an hour longer. They have now veered off, en masse and with miraculous precision really, turning on a dime out of the path of danger to their boy. Their concern for the victims of the storm—during Sandy AND Katrina—was entirely a function of the political effects that disasters may be exploited to achieve—in other words, much the same as the president's papier maché empathy. It will not revive. n nNext week on "The Howard Beale Show" we can look forward to . . . .
It is hard what with the equivalent of a state owned media.
Just call is Pravda. 0bama will get a pass on everything, he is their king, their ruler, dear leader. I am wondering how these people affected by Sandy voted. The regime made sure, there were stations and trucks all of the place, where people could vote.
Asinine post. Obama's response to Sandy was light years faster and more thorough than Bush's to Katrina. There is no comparison. A point-by-point analysis, which of course you won't undertake, would make that abundantly clear. n nThat the media likes Obama more than they did Bush, which of course they do, does not change this fact. Neither does your whining propaganda, Bethany.
By all means please have at it and share a few points of analysis with us.
That's amusing. I'm guessing you buy into everything the media tells you. Like lambs to slaughter….
Documentation is available in countless different reputable places around the web. The fact that you, ReadANDresearch, reflexively dismiss anything you construe as part of the Grand Liberal Media Conspiracy does not make your views more credible. Take your own eponymous advice: collect and evaluate information for yourself. Absolute credulity and absolute incredulity are equally untenable. Like a moth to a Contentious lightbulb… n nAnyway, this particular issue is just not close. It isn't a good use of my time to repeat the extensive work that many, many a reputable journalist has done already. It's not as if ideologues would admit to unambiguous facts which don't conform to their narrow view of the world anyway – a world in which everything a Democrat ever does is, by definition, destructive.
Let me guess: OFA signs your checks.
I am employed by a private New York-area philanthropy with no partisan affiliation. n nThanks for playing.
The mass media will not tolerate this! nWith stupid people the simplest way to win is to tell a lie.
Anit-prop…the only thing light years ahead was the White House occupant streaking to the Jersey Shore for a photo op. FEMA shut down for a snow day, they are out having breakfast everyday at the local Perkins..response please; its an abysmal failure.
With the president re-elected Sandy has outlived its usefulness for the MSM
“Obama’s response to Sandy was light years faster and more thorough than Bush’s to Katrina. There is no comparison. A point-by-point analysis, which of course you won’t undertake, would make that abundantly clear.”
I would like you to undertake that point-by-point analysis. I’m very serious when I say that. If there’s substance to what you’re saying, I want to see it and if it’s there I’ll be persuaded. I haven’t studied the issue by my general impression from the news I have seen is that Obama has been lackadaisical about overseeing this situation as he has in many others. I don’t see any sign of a government response more effective or coordinated than previous disasters – including Katrina and many others.
Because he is Mulatto …. He is who he is, he showed up, the product of his parents who were not too seriously concerned about him and put forth a leftist agenda ….. Not that prezbo was a child of Hitler, but almost …. Can you imagine, if any of them are here today (RIP to those who are not), the chaos they have reaped? Reminds me of "Rosemary¨s Baby¨¨
Why isn't this Obama's Katrina? Because the victims aren't Black and the president is a democrat. The press has nothing to gain by attacking him.
Maybe because Mayor Bloomberg declined FEMA"s help??????? You think that might have something to do with it? Bloomberg told Obama to take his FEMA to places where people would need it.
To answer the title of the article: Sandy will never be hung around Obama's neck the way Katrina was hung around Bush's because the media loves Obama and hated George Bush.
You are certainly right, but to national pundits and politicians, you are all political pawns. The election is over. Unless you threaten Obama's power, he'll ignore you. If you do threaten his power, he'll make your life more miserable. Press stories will be about everyone sitting on their butts waiting for the feds to save them, the IRS will knock on the door of anyone who goes in front of a camera, and union thugs will make sure you get the message, standing on your porch for a chat after 11PM. He did do one thing for you and screwed the insurance companies in the process. By changing the type of storm from a hurricane to a post tropical storm, insurance companies can't enforce hurricane deductibles, costing them about $15,000 extra per claim. Good for you, but wait till next year when no one will sell you insurance period. Investors don't stick around to get fleeced twice. if they can't make a profit, they invest their money elsewhere.