Mayor Bloomberg Found for Relief?

Kirsten Gillibrand Meets With Women Bloggers (Photo credit: glennia;free/non-commercial)

Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, speak about the National Guard (Photo credit: The National Guard)

Chuck Schumer in Albany (Photo credit: azipaybarah)

Michael Bloomberg was affiliated with Salomon Brothers before launching his own firm Bloomberg News and later becoming mayor. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Commentary-Part 2/New York City

A couple of days ago I questioned here, "Where is Mayor Bloomberg?".
     Mr. Bloomberg has been found. Today he hosts, in Gotham, the U. S. president and significant cabinet people and senators.       The Daily Astorian says that the mayor will tour ruined parts of the city with dignitaries arriving via the presidential plane, Air Force One (AF1). President Obama is scheduled to bring Janet Napolitano, (Homeland Security Secretary) and Shaun Donovan (Housing and Urban Development [HUD] Secretary), as well as New York State's U. S. senators. The AF1 passenger list represents a small chunk of Washington power players. 
     Also somewhat missing have been U. S. senators Schumer and Gillibrand. Well, they, too, have been found...with the president. In an effort to be fair, here, I have read that Mr. Schumer has made a lot of calls on behalf of the worst-affected boroughs and neighborhoods. Probably, Ms Gillibrand has done the same.  
     Dear New York City victims of the devastation of storm Sandy, living in the worst-hit areas: Will this latest visit by dignitaries to your homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and dark/electricity-less streets reassure you? Will some of you feel literally unwashed, in  unwashed clothes (unless someone has helped you by now), growling, hungry stomachs (unless "ditto," about the help), and in the not-so-comfortable setting of...rubble? 
     Almost three weeks after the storm, is this your dream of a meeting with people elected and appointed to serve you? Do you expect that their words like "we see you and what you're going through" and "we will not forget" will rise to the levels of urgent needs that you live every second of these uncertain and painful days? 
     What will you see improved in your lives in hours and days after AF1 and her human cargo leave? They've been found. They've sort of found you. "What next?," I wonder...and worry, pray, and yes, hope. Donations of money are a starting point only, and are not yet enough.   

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Hurricane Sandy's NYC Sufferers: "Where is our mayor!?!"

Reach out to Staten Island, Belle Harbor, and other places of New York City. Above, a business (before Sandy, 2012 hurricane) on Targee Avenue, Staten Island, NY (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Commentary

I have been alarmed as you probably have been too to learn of the continuing, growing, and urgent health, economic, environmental, and basic survival needs of thousands of survivors of post-Hurricane-Sandy in Staten Island, Belle Harbor, Breezy Point, and other worst-affected NYC coastal communities. The continuing failures of quick-response planning and action in New York City should wake all of us up to disaster response holes that just might exist in our own local, state, and federal plans, as well.   

     On Staten Island and in Belle Harbor, NYC, for example: neighbors, outside people and businesses, and organizations, such as Christian missionaries from the U.S. State of Tennessee, and volunteer doctors and nurses have responded with real help by real, and usually regular, people doing the dirty work alongside those who suffer so much loss. It did sadden me today to see on television a father and, I suppose, his son, piece by piece clearing out the debris of their home leveled by the storm. 

     What if all NYC government buildings had been hit by Sandy? What responses would be there now, on the ground, almost around the clock? Yet, still, loss of electricity keeps many NYC residents in the dark. Would government people be helped with hotel rooms if their homes had been destroyed, even the mayor's home, by fire or storm? Think about this, Mr. Mayor of New York City! Is this the way to treat your city, where lack of electricity remains as a trial to thousands of suffering NYC citizens… more than two weeks later? I think your lights would have been on much faster...and probably were. [We lost power at home in Maryland, during the hurricane storm, for only three days and I can remember how it began to grate on us after 48 hours!] Why in the world isn't New York City's mayor paying attention until someone working with him rises to the ability to think creatively enough to solve this problem by any means,  no matter how "out there"? There are many, albeit unusual and legal, possibilities for those "in power." If they possess any ingenuity at all, why are they not using it and their power for good, ongoing?   

     At the beginning, local, state, and federal officials were on site in the worst-hit locations or nearby. Their words and hugs gave temporary hope. Recently, however, real answers and help remain in silent Emergency Response Brake-On mode; swift and significant help appears to be on hold. This is the response of those in government, many being politically-connected executives with enormous power, many often boasting of what government can do and how it cares. Part of the problem is that "it" is not a person; I suspect that many career people employed by relevant local, state, and federal agencies groan at having their hands tied to give the same on the ground help that others try, with little help, to give. These best of public servants sadly recognize the distance that remains between giving assurances and following through until the dirty jobs are done and rebuilding can begin.

     In light of health, economic, environmental, and basic survival (warm shelter, food), Urgent Post-Hurricane-Sandy Needs should be addressed. Right away. 

• Where are the local, state, and federal health and human services departments? 
• Where are the financial resources being applied to real help on the ground? 
• Where are EPA and FEMA at local and state levels? 
• Where are the national health plan brains needed to figure out how to help the affected localities become proactive regarding looming risks of health due to oil or gas leaks, standing water and disease-prone foul air, soil and water after flooding and fires of this hurricane?

     It was said that Katrina-failures would never happen again, but they have!

    

 Where is Mayor Bloomberg? 

Where are U. S. senators Schumer and Gillibrand? 
Where are all NY City's public servants, and what are they doing? 

Streets of New York cry out! 

The Link for people who want to help and will help...leads here.
Another Opinari New York City article [9/11]
Copyright (c) 2012 Opinari Writers. 
     

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9/11-The Church that Stood, and Stands

2015/A.M.: MSNBC showed film from 9/11/01; FoxNews covered ceremonies in NYC, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania. Others, business as usual during the critical hours of memorial.  FoxNews interviewed people on the scene at the Pentagon and in the White House, as well as NYC. 


2010: "New Yorkers and family members came to honor the victim's of 9/11. ...Four moments of silence were held at 8:46 and 9:03 a.m., when the planes hit the towers, and at 9:59 and 10:28 a.m., when each tower fell." (Source: MyFoxNY.com, 9/11/10-"The Little Church that Stood"-by Adrian Carrasquillo)

The 2008 article, "The Church that Stood, and Stands," first posted on SearchWarp.com, 9/11/2008, the seventh memorial year:

2008-Remembering St. Paul's Church - ("The Church that Stood, and Stands"-SearchWarp.com, 9/11/08-by Jean Purcell):

Soon after September 11, 2001, my husband and I were in New York City. We went  to Ground Zero, where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center had recently stood strong, towering into the skies above the Hudson River. Now, we stood in a long snake-line of people paying respects, alongside a black iron fence enclosing a uniquely special church. In line,  people wore professional, sports, and casual clothes. As if it were a normal day. Patience and quiet stood in line, eerily on display, where normally there would have been rush and noise in the normal city routine.

Ground Zero view outside St. Paul's Chapel-trinitywallstreet.org

The black iron fence in front of the church immediately next door to the towers bore memorial ribbons, flowers, and photos, the latter placed in hopes of finding family or friends safe, not a victim of the deluge of steel, fire, and smoking dust. Also attached to that church fence were written prayers and poems. The church, which had, amazingly, stood intact through the tragedy of that morning of September 11, 2001, now provided unique comfort and hope outside, as well as within. for rescue workers, pastors, priests, rabbis, medical people, and others who love their fellowmen and what America stands for, a haven for prayers and free food and drink for exhausted Ground Zero workers during brief, dusty breaks.

Today is the seventh memorial year of that 9/11. The World Trade Center site pit, which marks that infamous attack by fanatic-driven aim in the skies over the Hudson River from Boston, shows signs of change, a memorial setting in progress. When the memorial opens, I hope visitors will notice the church that stands nearby, embraced by that iron fence that bore loving notices for a long, long time. If ever that church suffers a direct attack, it is a great comfort to know that the Church it represents, the body of faith led by Jesus Christ, will stand eternally.

Acts of terror and the ideology of those who took over four American airliners will not win. Our faith, hope, togetherness, and spirit of determination and devotion to freedom will remain victorious. Those who love, treasure, and seek to protect freedom will vanquish their ideology and their efforts. May God bless all who honor the memory of the helpless, the rescuers, and the comforters who died on 9/11/01. Like that church that stood and still stands alongside the site of the World Trace Center's Twin Towers, may we always be prepared to serve, comfort, and offer hope to others.

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved" (John 3:14-17). 

2001 -St. Paul's Church, next to the Trade Center site, went into action to serve food and water and provide brief relief and prayers for firefighters, medical rescue teams, police, and others...On that fateful day of reverberating shocks, America suffered multiple human loss at: World Trade Center Twin Towers, North and South, NYC; the Pentagon, VA, just outside Washington, DC; a farm field in PA. We do not deny. We do not forget. We remember the victims of terrorism that died that day, and the brave living who lost  yet went forward, due to their love.  

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