Public Employee Press

Sandy wallops New York

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS


New York City and the East Coast braced for a brutal beat down from Hurricane Sandy Oct. 29 and once again DC37 members and the city's unionized workforce of public workers were counted on the frontlines, evacuating hundreds of thousands of residents and readying shelters, hospitals and other vital services to help people through the largest Atlantic storm in history.

Sandy was a monster of a storm, a uniquely violent squall that raged on the tri-state area. Fueling it was a storm system from the west, cold air from Canada and a full moon. The super storm drew strength over the Atlantic Ocean and caused tidewaters to rise so high in Lower Manhattan that the East River met the Hudson and the New York Bay, flooding Lower Manhattan, including DC37 headquarters and East River and Hudson River tunnels.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg shuttered the subway and bus systems and imposed evacuations Oct. 28. Through Hurricane Sandy, public workers were the first responders.

Sandy's winds peaked at nearly 90 miles per hour. The 1,000-mile-wide super storm barreled down on the region for nearly 36 hours, pummeling the city's coast and archipelagos that are connected by bridges to the boroughs and flooding marshes, wetlands, subways and basements alike.

Sandy's wake left mass destruction marked by power outages, gas shortages and wiped out whole neighborhoods. Floodwaters rose 11 feet and higher. Salty, violent waves splintered and washed away boardwalks from Brooklyn to the Jersey Shore and parked leisure boats on train tracks.

The city's municipal workers represented by DC37 were ordered to remain on the job during the massive and powerful Hurricane Sandy. EMS workers responded to emergency calls throughout the five boroughs.

Public hospitals hit hard

Public workers in locals 371, 372, 768, 1549 and other unions set up 72 shelters to accommodate evacuees and their pets. Local 983 Park Enforcement Patrol Officers helped move 350,000 residents in low-lying Zone A communities like Battery City Park, Brighton Beach, Coney Island, the Rockaways, Red Hook and Staten Island.

Hospital workers in local 420, 768, 924, 983, 1549 and other unions at the Health and Hospitals Corp.'s Coney Island, Bellevue and Coler-Goldwater hospitals worked around the clock to help safely evacuate patients. HHC redeployed staff to busier hospitals, where many employees worked 12 to 48 hours and longer with no relief.

At Bellevue Hospital on the East Side, workers formed a human chain to transport fuel to a rooftop generator. Later as flood waters rose in the 20-story facility, that chain of workers evacuated gravely ill patients in intensive care units to safety.

Generators heated some HHC facilities, but at long-term care facility Coler-Goldwater, union officials said, storm flood waters left hospital workers to care for hundreds of severely infirmed patients at that facility with no lights, heat or hot food. Residents in New York City Housing Authority high rise projects in Red Hook and Coney Island in the flood zone were still without power, heat or lights, as PEP went to press.

Employees in the Parks Dept. and the Dept. of Environmental Protection in DC37 locals, including Job Training Participants program workers, stayed at their posts for three days to help clean up debris and fallen boughs in public parks.

To allow emergency vehicles access and to protect public safety, Climbers and Pruners in Local 1506 worked 16-hour shifts answering more than 1,000 calls to remove damaged trees in Queens that blocked streets, fell onto houses and crushed vehicles.

DEP workers in Local 1322 drove in heavy-duty trucks from upstate New York to drain Manhattan manholes so Con Edison workers could assess electrical damage, make repairs and restore power to neighborhoods Sandy left in the dark. They cleared clogged storm drains across the city. Sewage treatment plant workers and their Supervisors in Local 1320 kept New York's drinking water safe, adding chlorine to avoid contamination.

The Atlantic Ocean surged and Sandy's high winds pushed saltwater into the six buildings of the New York Aquarium on the Coney Island boardwalk. Although Wildlife Conservation Society employees sandbagged doors, seawater poured into ducts and vents. Waters rose 11 to 15 feet in some basement areas. Sandy's flood waters knocked out electrical transformers and damaged pumps and motors that filter, heat and oxygenate fish tanks. Local 1501 members worked tirelessly to stop surging waters from contaminating exhibits that hold some 12,000 rare sea creatures, fish and mammals.

Flashfloods rushed and submerged subway stations to train track ceilings. Sandy's water force moved homes in the Rockaways and Staten Island off their foundations.

The destruction Sandy unleashed on New York City compares only to Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 storm that took more than 1,890 lives and destroyed New Orleans and surrounding areas in Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle.

40,000 left homeless

Hurricane Sandy left some 40,000 people homeless, posing an onerous dilemma for a city that already struggles with a massive housing shortage. Sadly, New York suffered 47 deaths, including 40 in New York City, with half of those deaths in Staten Island.

As Hurricane survivors across the city grapple with the human toll and recovery and look toward rebuilding, Gov. Andrew Cuomo estimates the price of Sandy's damage to be around $33 billion, and since the storm, the city lost about $18 billion in business income.

City Laborers in Local 924 transported bottles of clean drinking water from the National Guard in Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field to public schools that were closed but served as shelters and collection sites for donated clothing, cleaning supplies and food for displaced Far Rockaway residents.

With DEP Laborers in Local 376, Local 924 members cleared filthy storm waters from the basement and elevator shafts in the Dept. of Education's school supplies building on Vernon Boulevard in Queens.

As first responders, DC37 members and the city's unionized workforce of Police and Firefighters labored tirelessly to protect lives and the city's infrastructure during the super storm. Some clocked 16-hour days, working six days a week, sleeping in trucks, on cots, and working without proper safety equipment, boots or respirators to restore New York City in the post-Sandy aftermath and cleanup.

Self-sacrificing and committed, the city's unionized workforce, some whose own homes were damaged or destroyed and whose lives no doubt were turned upside down, left their families and personal concerns behind to help New Yorkers recover from this latest, all-consuming disaster.