11/7/12, “FEMA Disaster Centers Shut Doors ‘Due to Weather‘,“ Updated 74 mins ago,” DNAInfo.com/newyork
TOTTENVILLE, Staten Island, NY: “They fly into disaster areas, but flee from raindrops.
FEMA disaster recovery centers in Hurricane Sandy-ravaged sections of the city that were supposed to provide assistance to hurricane victims went MIA Wednesday morning, posting signs saying that they were closed due to the approaching Nor’easter.
The temporary shuttering of the facilities, which help victims register for disaster relief, as well as city food distribution centers come even as many of those still reeling from the monster storm were not told that they had to leave the battered areas.
On Tuesday, Mayor Bloomberg said that residents in the low-lying portions of Staten Island and the Rockaways were advised to leave ahead of the nor’easter, which could hit the city with 60 mph gusts and several inches of rain Wednesday afternoon, but that the evacuation was not mandatory like the one issued for all of Zone A ahead of Sandy.
The move left residents of the storm-ravaged areas fuming.
“The storm is coming. We don’t know how hard it’s going to hit us,” said Jenny Cartagena, 46, who found the FEMA center in Coney Island closed Wednesday.
“I need some help now.”
The city’s food distribution centers, a lifeline for the thousands left without power, heat and water for more than a week, would only be operating until noon Wednesday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced.
In Staten Island, a printed paper sign taped to the front door of on the center at 6581 Hylan Blvd. at 10:30 a.m. read “FEMA Center Closed Due to Weather.”
The front doors of the disaster recovery center, which is housed inside the Mount Lorretto Catholic Youth Organization, were unlocked, but there was no staff anywhere in sight for at least a half an hour.
And a set of buses which served as a pair of warming centers at the site for the past several days were missing, according to non-FEMA volunteers who continued to hand out supplies from a nearby building despite the storm.
Volunteers at a nearby donation distribution center said the buses vanished on Wednesday. FEMA packed up and left,” said Louis Giraldi, 47, a volunteer handing out cleaning supplies to victims.
“We don’t know where they are, so there’s nothing here but us.”
The site is listed on FEMA’s list of NYC recovery centers, and was supposed to be open from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday. The site was also included in the city’s list of warming facilities supposed to open at 9 a.m. on Wednesday at the site.
A FEMA R/V also sat empty next to the recovery center.
A pair of FEMA workers alarmed by a reporter’s camera came out of the building at 11 a.m. and took the sign down, saying the shelter would open at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The worker declined to give his name and would not explain why the site was closed or why the buses were missing.
FEMA spokesman Carter Langston said that the mobile centers were shuttered and staff moved inland because they were not structurally sound enough to weather the storm, which could put their staff in danger.
“Because these are mobile centers, they were shut down for life safety,” Langston said. “As soon as weather permits tomorrow, they’re going to be back in place [possibly by noon].”
The remaining five sites in the city — in Staten Island, Coney Island, the Rockaways and The Bronx — were also closed or in the process of shutting down.
In Coney Island, a sign written in red ink that was bleeding from the rain sat on a police barrier in the parking lot of Our Lady of Solace Shrine Church on West 17th Street and Mermaid Avenue.
”They didn’t want to get their precious van wet,” quipped a church volunteer.
Cartagena, an asthma sufferer, said she showed up to the site with her home health aide, Camilla Suriel, 49, and her son’s grandfather, Nelson Otero, 72 expecting “at least water.”
"Something, you know, help,” she said.Serkan Yalcin, whose apartment in Sheepshead Bay was wrecked by Sandy, had a friend drop him off there.
He applied online for FEMA assistance last week, and came to the center today to follow up with an actual FEMA rep after his wife was not able to get through to reps.“I would like to know if my application is in the system or not,” he said.
“Nobody has called or shown up.”
The situation was similar in Queens, where thousands remain without power more than a week after Sandy.
At the FEMA site on Rockaway Point Boulevard, near Barrett Street, a sign read: “Operations stop [Tuesday] at 4 p.m. Closed Wednesday 7 Nov.”
The plan was to move the tent on Rockaway Point Blvd. and Barrett to the 99th Regional Support Command Center for Army reservists there, but because the building had no power the move could not be made until Thursday, a rep for the command center said.
“If it’s going to be the same kind of storm as Hurricane Sandy, it’s going to be very difficult to operate, especially inside a tent like this one,” said Army Sgt. First Class Francisco Soriano, who was on scene.
Another location that was listed on FEMA’s website on Beach 116th Street and Beach Channel Drive, showed no signs of the agency’s presence.
At the city’s Miller Field Distribution Center on New Dorp Lane in Staten Island, which houses a mobile FEMA disaster recovery center was also shutting down on Wednesday morning, a police car blocked the entrance at 11:35 a.m.
A cop said that officials were evacuating it because of the storm.”
photo DNAinfo
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commenter
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“Melody McMahan Warbington · Birmingham, Alabama
A government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take it away. They just did.”
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Ed. note: I noticed the above commenter was from Alabama. I had
never met anyone from Alabama until a few years ago when I lived in
Florida for awhile. People from Alabama know how to deal with trouble,
how to get through it, because a lot of it has been given to them. via Instapundit
.
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