Just took my first walk around the neighborhood, post Hurricane Sandy. Incredible scenes of destruction in the usually imperturbable heart of civilization. Crews were out everywhere removing downed trees, repairing damaged scaffolds. We take it for granted much of the time, but we’re incredibly lucky to live in a place with such well run public administration.
That looks terrible. I hope no one was hurt around there.
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Thanks – not that I know of. Yesterday a jogger in Brooklyn died when a tree fell on her in Prospect Park (which had been closed and people warned not to go in due to the danger of falling trees) and a couple of boys were killed in Westchester when a tree fell on the room they were in. Other than that I have not heard of many fatalities. Remarkable when you consider this is the worst Atlantic storm this area has ever suffered and there are 10s of millions of people. It is a testament to our public administration that preparations and rescue efforts have gone so well.
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I totally agree. We had several reports here in the media. And some of them had been about the preparations. It was quiet impressive to see that.
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Last I heard some 15 people have not survived it… Could be more by now but considering what power has passed over the city, it still seems a miracle! Glad to see you are ok.
I followed the landfall of Sandy on CNN here in Belgium en it looked like a real nightmare to me! It will take some time to get everything going again, I suppose…
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Yes, as of this morning I have heard that the New York City death toll has reached 18 and the storm has taken a total of 50 lives. Millions remain without electricity, mostly in New Jersey but a very high number in NY as well where we seldom suffer very large outages. Subway train service looks like it will be delayed much more severely. Many tunnels are filled with water and some of it is salt water which the pumps were not designed to handle (and in any case the pumps have no electricity, nor do the ventilators). All the same, I remain confident that the relevant municipal services are doing their jobs and progress is being made; many volunteers are being put to work as well. As I type this I can hear the trucks outside removing rubbish and downed trees. We hope school will reopen tomorrow; my wife has attempted taking a bus to work today; my daughter looks forward to trick-or-treating for Halloween this evening. Life marches on.
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As it should, I guess…
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