Hurricane Sandy-Thursday

Mayor Bloomberg quipped in one of his initial Hurricane Sandy press briefs that next time a New Yorker bad mouthes the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) remember they gave you free rides during the hurricane. Well today (Thurs) any subway line that could possibly be running is while buses (choking with passengers) renewed an almost full service yesterday. A quite remarkable achievement in transit logistics 3 days after a hurricane. And with the best will in the world one could muster, it’d be hard to imagine London getting back on its feet that quickly.

Instead of subway tunnels surging into rivers we had streets concreted with cars- a gridlock symphony of honking horns worthy of a Havergal Brian monster symphony. Even with a chill in the air the sun shone this morning in relative quiet. Many in lower Manhattan and other boroughs are still without power (after the storm roughly 750,000 were blacked out) and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore gave food for thought on Piers Morgan’s CNN show last night asking why should public utilities such as gas and electricity be given a monopoly in NYC (Con Edison). Either the system is competition capitalism or socialist control.

Regardless of where one stands in that debate it is essential to question a city as large and complex as New York. Piers Morgan pursued his inquiries into the hospital generators failing (yesterday another hospital Bellevue was forced to evacuate patients). And Morgan (and his programme) was one of the few commentators who were brave enough to raise those prickly questions. The restoration of services in the city has been truly impressive for the most part (and that’s thanks to City Hall and the belief of New Yorkers). It’s unlikely New York will ever see a storm like Sandy. But as both Bloomberg and Michael Moore acknowledged, global warming is now a fact of life (though the Republicans continue denying that on Capitol Hill). Yet given New York’s size and its geographic handicap of islands surrounded by water the city will always need to troubleshoot likely breaches of its defenses. In fact the sea wall protecting the E14th street power station was built to withstand 12.5foot waves (did a spokesman on TV claim more maybe I misheard) – far in excess of last year’s Hurricane Irene or any predicted eventuality. How much is enough when so much of the bottom line in New York is corporate money? The only answer is to keep that debate alive and virulent. New Yorkers have a tendency to complain a lot often about inconsequential things. Harness that energy, though, and combine it with the hard core of productive New York skepticism and the city may well keep its head above water for decades to come. New Jersey and its sealine friends will just have to play poker with Mother Nature. Who says the female isn't the most deadliest and devious of the species;)?