Hurricane Sandy ripped through Canarsie, Brooklyn TOO

East 108th Street in Canarsie,Brooklyn a community that was affected by Hurricane Sandy

After realizing the complete ABSENCE regarding persons of color in the local news coverage of Hurricane Sandy I decided to walk through my community of Canarsie on Saturday. However, I will say that Canarsie has a number of different races and cultures but African-Americans do make up a large percentage of the residents.

Furthermore, I started with Canarsie since my friends who live in this neighborhood were saying things like “It’s disgusting out here,” and were posting pictures of flooded basements and downed trees on Facebook in the days following Hurricane Sandy.

I wanted to know if those conditions still remained nearly a week after Hurricane Sandy destroyed most things that came into her path. Ironically, Canarsie was not designated as an Evacuation Zone A community according to a map that can be viewed here published by the NYC Office of Emergency Management. Also I wanted to figure out why major news outlets with the exception of one blog post by the Wall Street Journal, which can be read here, were not mentioning what Hurricane Sandy did to Canarsie.

I spoke to more than ten homeowners and residents who lived in the area of Flatlands 7-10 from East 108th Street East 105th Street. In each of the following blog posts, I captured four different accounts from people who explained how Hurricane Sandy impacted their lives.

1) http://writing-rightingnow.blogspot.com/2012/11/no-warning.html

2) http://writing-rightingnow.blogspot.com/2012/11/going-through-water.html

3) http://writing-rightingnow.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-headache-with-insurance.html

4) http://writing-rightingnow.blogspot.com/2012/11/lack-of-support-from-elected-officials.html

In short these are the major concerns from Canarsie resident affected by Hurricane Sandy:

1. Monetary Assistance: A. Many of these homeowners are in the peculiar situation of having an insurance policy that covers only Hurricane damage but does not cover flood damage. Furthermore, their Hurricane deductible which was commonly five percent results in each of these homeowners paying at least $15,000 of their own money before their insurance company will release any additional funding. B. FEMA has been accepting claims from homeowners in the neighborhood. However, FEMA only covers a portion of the value of “necessity” items. According to homeowners “necessity” items includes lighting, appliances (stove, refrigerators), boilers, furnaces. That excludes computers, washing machines/ dryers, bed sets, and other furniture. Furthermore, FEMA should be more visible and set up a mobile office in Canarsie. According to one homeowner, they did so in the other Brooklyn community of Coney Island and in Staten Island.

2. When will their homes be safe to live in? Most of the basements in this neighborhood were flooded with sewage and other toxins. These homes need to be disinfected ASAP. Plus the sewage system for many homes have been destroyed and water caused mold to form on the basement walls that could over time spread to the walls on the higher floors.

3. A new and stronger seawall needs to be built along the side of the inlet from Jamaica Bay thats closest to the homes in order to prevent major flooding again.

4. Should Canarsie be designated as Evacuation Zone A? Since Canarsie is in Evacuation Zone B, these residents received no warning to vacate their homes and they took no precautions like buying a generator or moving valuables to a higher ground.

5. The local politicians are not being as vocal as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

6. The media is not highlighting the destruction of Canarsie.