How Non-Profits Profited from Hurricane Sandy

Schneiderman: some nonprofits holding storm donations

...Within days of Superstorm Sandy making landfall in October 2012, a number of charitable organizations started collecting donations from kindhearted souls freely giving their monies to help with Sandy relief efforts or so they thought.
...
Schneiderman's office found that 89 charities raised more than half a billion dollars. By April, only 57 percent of that had been given in sandy relief, leaving at least $238 million still in the hands of those nonprofits and not in the hands of Sandy victims.

Good job; get your money for nothing, and forget to send out the checks.  Probably need to throw a big party for favorite donors, and big salaries for the charity administration.

Good Neighbors, Friends More Help Than Government

Friends, neighbors were more helpful than government after Sandy, poll finds

A poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that after the storm in New York and New Jersey, friends, relatives and neighbors were cited the most often as the people who helped them make it through.

People overwhelmingly said the Oct. 29 storm brought out the best in their neighbors, who shared generators, food, water and other supplies. Far fewer said they found help from federal or state governments.

Stranded in her darkened 20th-floor apartment in Brooklyn's Coney Island with two small children, Irina Medvinskaya was feeling desperate in the bleak days after the storm. The elevators stopped working. The food in her refrigerator spoiled.

Without the help of friends and family — particularly her boyfriend, who lugged full water-cooler bottles up the stairs — she doesn't know how she would have survived.

"People who can bring you food and water, and walk up 20 floors?" she said. "That's family, not FEMA."

Your friends and neighbors are with you for the long haul, maybe even life.  Your government gets paid to help and leave, and hopefully take your vote.  They have no personal investment, nor should they.  We risk a lot by allowing the government to become our surrogate friends and families.

2012 A Bad Year for Bay Weeds

Chesapeake Bay Sees 20% Drop In Underwater Grasses 

Underwater grasses in the Chesapeake Bay declined more than 20 percent last year, according to scientists. It was a blow to many fish as well as other species that need the grass to live or breed. Underwater grasses create meadows of sorts beneath the surface; those areas are where all kinds of creatures like crabs and striped bass live and breed. Last year, some 17,000 acres were wiped out.

Scientists with the federal Environmental Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay Program survey bay grass levels annually; they say bay grass coverage has now dropped to its lowest point since 2006 and is at historically low levels. The researchers blame extreme weather: heavy rains and snow melt sent tons of mud and debris into the bay last year, and record setting summer heat killed off many acres as well.

I really don't recall last year being that awful by comparison with other recent years, but maybe that just means I've spent too much time blogging and not enough time fishing.  Well, there was that pesky "Superstorm Sandy", but I thought it was kind of a dud for impact on the Bay, at least compared to Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee in 2011.

Here's a graphic from the EPA Bay Program to put it into perspective:

Not a lot of progress toward the goal of 180,00 acres of SAV the Bay Program has set as the goal for two years ago.

Shock: Feds Pad Sandy Relief Bill with Pork

Obama Sandy aid bill filled with holiday goodies unrelated to storm damage

President Obama’s $60.4 billion request for Hurricane Sandy relief has morphed into a huge Christmas stocking of goodies for federal agencies and even the state of Alaska, The Post has learned.

The pork-barrel feast includes more than $8 million to buy cars and equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments. It also includes a whopping $150 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to dole out to fisheries in Alaska and $2 million for the Smithsonian Institution to repair museum roofs in DC.

An eye-popping $13 billion would go to “mitigation” projects to prepare for future storms.

Is anybody really shocked? What's a billion dollars these days? You need to get to a trillion before people start paying attention

Helluva Job, Fuggy - V

FEMA teams told to 'sightsee' as Sandy victims suffered

Hurry up and wait.

That’s what first responders were left to do after being deployed by FEMA to assist in the storm-ravaged areas in the initial days after superstorm Sandy, FoxNews.com has learned. A FEMA worker who spoke to FoxNews.com described a chaotic scene at New Jersey's Fort Dix, where emergency workers arrived as the storm bore down on the Atlantic Coast. The worker said officials at the staging area were unprepared and told the incoming responders there was nothing for them to do for nearly four days.

“They told us to hurry, hurry, hurry," the worker, who works at the agency's headquarters in Washington and volunteered to deploy for the storm recovery effort. "We rushed to Fort Dix, only to find out that our liaison didn’t even know we were coming.”

As I have said before, we'll before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the media had decided that they would portray everything bad that happened as President Bush's fault, and as Hurricane Sandy neared New York, they set out to show how well he and his version of FEMA handled it.

Helluva Job, Bloomy!

New York City Hits Sandy Victims With ‘Failure To Maintain’ Property Citation

Residents in one Queens neighborhood are crying foul after they were written up for failing to clean up the city’s own mess. It is yet another new complication in life after Superstorm Sandy.

Rosanne and Joe Cavaliere are still trying to clean up from the hurricane. They have branches through their roof, busted front windows, and, to add insult to injury, they recently received a citation notice from the city.

“It makes me angry, but it’s also ridiculous!” Rosanne Cavaliere told CBS 2’s Jessica Schneider. They got it on Nov. 9, cited with “failure to maintain” their property. But as they pointed out to CBS 2’s Schneider on Tuesday night, it’s a city tree that they were waiting for the city to remove.

Why surely that must be a mistake, right?  No city would give someone a ticket for what they city itself is responsible for?

The Department of Buildings released the following statement: “We have been working closely with property owners as they prepare to rebuild, and part of our process is documenting the damage that has occurred. These violations do not carry any monetary penalties, and if any homeowner has a question, please call 311.”

But that explanation didn’t fly with the Cavalieres. “I want the violation off my house, off my record, and all of our neighbors,” Rosanne Cavaliere said.

The Department of Buildings said, for the now, the citations will stand, but the Cavalieres said they’ll continue to fight to get them removed.

So the only mechanism they have for keeping track of their owned downed trees is to write a ticket out to homeowners.  Even I know how to set up an ACCESS data base...

Helluva Job, Fuggy* - IV

FEMA Drops Ball, Leaves Pregnant Lady Out in the Cold

A pregnant Hurricane Sandy victim was booted from her hotel room yesterday and forced to hunt for a place to stay because FEMA dropped the ball on her reservation.

Keri Christian, 27, was living at Brooklyn’s Nu Hotel with her daughter, Serafina, 2, after the storm destroyed their Staten Island home.

Now the eight-months-pregnant mom is couch surfing at an acquaintance’s home in Bay Ridge until she finds a new place.

Her husband, Anthony Marotto, 41, has been in Staten Island, trying to raise their charred and flooded home from the ashes.

“I feel like a homeless person . . . like a street rat,” said Christian, who’s expecting a boy in January. “It’s aggravating and physically demanding. I’m really pissed.”

She says FEMA approved her application for an extended stay until Dec. 14. But on Thursday, the hotel notified Christian her room was booked to someone else — and said FEMA never notified them of changes to her reservation.

I'm sure it was just a simple bureaucratic mixup; it could have happened to anyone.

*In case you didn't know, William Craig Fugate is President Obama's head of FEMA. 

Helluva Job, Fuggy* - VIII

Angry New Yorkers say Obama pledge to cut red tape ignored by FEMA

Storm-ravaged New Yorkers say President Obama’s promise to cut red tape and get them aid in the aftermath of Sandy has proven to be hot air.

Angry citizens vented at FEMA officials at a town hall meeting held by the disaster relief agency Thursday, with tempers boiling over. Some 1,000 people, many left homeless by the Oct. 29 storm, attended the meeting at Staten Island’s New Dorp High School. They were initially scheduled to submit written questions that would be picked and answered at random, but the session turned into an angry shouting match where residents booed FEMA officials and accused them of lying.

“We are the people – we are the middle class, and we are getting the finger,” said frustrated resident Scott McGrath, who personally spoke to President Obama and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo when they came to Staten Island to inspect storm damage earlier this month. “You were there when I met Obama, and I told the president … that the middle class was getting the royal finger. And he said, ‘FEMA works for me.’”

“FEMA ain’t doing nothing,” McGrath added. “They keep going around in circles.”

What does it matter now? You voted for him already.  He can't run for reelection.

*In case you didn't know, William Craig Fugate is President Obama's head of FEMA.

When the Power is Out, Cash is In

Hurricane Sandy proves cash is still king in emergencies 

The widespread and ongoing power outages caused by Hurricane Sandy not only left millions of people in the dark but reminded many of us of how useful it can be to have some good, old-fashioned cash on hand for an emergency.

Many ATMs in Sandy's path were rendered useless by the storm. Those that remained in operation often had long lines, and some reportedly ran out of cash. Credit and debit cards weren't of much use either, dependent as they are on electronic store terminals.

So, before the next big storm, it may make sense to round up a little extra cash....

And if things get really bad, it wouldn't be imprudent to have a little precious metal and/or guns and ammo...

Hurricane Intensity Reaches New Low

Hurricane Sandy was leaped on, almost literally, by left wing politicians and environmental activists as an example of how global warming climate change (what the hell are we calling it this week?) was causing more severe weather.  Fresh from the National Hurricane Center post Sandy (by way of Roger Pielke Jrs. blog, via WUWT) comes this graph of the power dissipation from US falling hurricane systems since 1900:

Individual years are in red, a five year running average in black.  Note that there are large variations, but no overall long term trend.  There are clearly periods of higher activity and lower activity, but even with Hurricane Sandy in the mix, the current 5 year average is the lowest ever.  In no way can it be inferred that global warming is causing increased hurricanes or hurricane damage in the US.

Jersey Shore May Keep Drowned Coaster

Destroyed roller coaster could be Jersey Shore tourist attraction, mayor says

The roller coaster that was swept right-side up into the Atlantic Ocean as Hurricane Sandy slammed the Jersey Shore may not be torn down, according to Seaside Heights Mayor Bill Akers.

But Mayor Akers, in an exclusive interview with NBC 4 New York, said he is working with the Coast Guard to see if it is stable enough to leave it alone.

If it is, Akers said it would make "a great tourist attraction."

It looks like a great attraction for fish to me; I'd fish around a structure like that in the water.

Incredible Pictures from Hurricane Sandy

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2225112/Superstorm-Sandy-Death-toll-hits-FIFTY-damage-set-50BILLION.html

I'm sure glad we were on the soft side.

Sandy Dug up Graves on Tangier

Sandy Washes Up Graveyard

Days after Hurricane Sandy churned the Chesapeake Bay and battered Tangier, Carol Moore went for a walk.

A part of Tangier Island, even at low tide, is barely above the waves. No one lives there, but it wasn’t always like that. “A thriving community. My great-grandfather owned a general store up here. And there was a school and a church,” Moore said.

A hurricane in the 1930s forced out the townspeople. They retreated to the main part of Tangier, leaving behind the artifacts of their lives. Time and tide washed them away, or buried them, until recently.

Among the shells and the driftwood, Moore spotted bottles, a button and then bones. “I was just walking along the shore and ran across five graves and three skeletons, a couple skulls and lots of bones,” she explained...

I'm pleasantly surprised they didn't invoke global warming and CO2 as the proximate cause of the disinterment.  As I have documented numerous times, the cause for the loss of land in the low lying islands of the Eastern shore are caused by numerous factors, including erosion at the margins of the islands, continued natural sea level rise after the end of the last ice age, and human induced subsidence and land use changes which prevent the flora from growing up to match sea level rise and not a sudden rise in sea level due to global warming climate change.

Having just visited Venice, I can see clearly what happens when man fights the rising sea.  Eventually, you get a city out in the water, with canals instead of streets (at least the major ones) and a population more accustomed to using boats instead of autos.  At some point the people on the Eastern Shore will need to decide whether they are retreating from the water, or learning to live with it.

Helluva Job, Fuggy* - VII: "This Is Our Katrina"

Now that the election is over we can see the same shortcomings in FEMA's response to Sandy:

'This Is Our Katrina': Coney Island Reels From Hurricane Sandy's Wrath 

“We lost everything. It was a disaster. Furniture was upside down. There was five feet of water, and there was water and wind damage. I'm estimating about 200 grand in damage,” she said, standing wrapped in a shawl as workers repaired one of the windows on Tuesday.

To add insult to injury, Stevens said the store does not have flood insurance, though she is hoping to be compensated in some manner.

FEMA and the city have been slow to offer assistance, Stevens said, as did other business owners interviewed there on Tuesday. She said that since the storm occurred, the only help she had been offered was the opportunity to apply for a low-interest small-business loan from FEMA.

In case you didn't know, William Craig Fugate is President Obama's head of FEMA.

Helluva job, Fuggy - VI

FEMA sold disaster shelters as 'Frankenstorm' gathered

Federal officials sold hundreds of emergency trailers for disaster victims at fire-sale prices in the months before Hurricane Sandy churned toward the United States, The Washington Examiner has learned.
Now, with thousands of families left homeless in New York and New Jersey by the hurricane, those same federal officials are poised to spend more taxpayer dollars to buy brand-new trailers.

Helluva Job, Fuggy* - V: Katrina on the Hudson

Hurricane Sandy: A Tale of Two Headlines

As Sandy moved up the Atlantic coast, The New York Times summed up the conventional wisdom about the hurricane and the feds in an editorial headlined "A Big Storm Requires Big Government." It wasn't long before that story started coming apart, and at this point it may be safe to say that the narrative has completely reversed. Here's The Brooklyn Bureau, reporting under the rather different headline "Grassroots Groups Have Taken Over Sandy Relief":

Twelve days after the storm, the Vollies headquarters in the hard-hit "old section" of Gerritsen nearer the ocean is a hive of donated food and clothes, volunteers from all over, lists of electricians and plumbers hastily scrawled on pages from legal pads and taped to a wall. A food truck, normally resident in Midtown, has been dispatched by the mayor's office to serve free meals. National Guard troops based at nearby Floyd Bennett Field sort through a mountain of clothing. Amid the maelstrom, Assistant Fire Chief Doreen Garson is a nonstop ball of energy, directing volunteers, "Right now," she says, "we're acting as our own little city."...

By comparison, there has been less visible support from city and federal agencies. In particular, the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- which has already been lambasted in the media for shutting down many of its aid centers for two days "due to weather" when a nor'easter swept through last week, and for being outperformed by a bunch of ragged veterans of Occupy Wall Street -- gets little praise from the storm survivors thronging the Vollies hall.

As I've said before, the main difference between the response FEMA to Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy is the media.  For Katrina, they had the message prepared in advance, Katrina was Bush's fault (I don't know how they got there, but they did), and that any action he or FEMA took was wrong or too little.   In the case of Sandy, with their darling facing reelection, the narrative was that Mr. Cool Bomber Jacket (they're cool when worn by our guys) presided over a reformed FEMA that did everything necessary and everything right (please stop whining about the water in the street, the lack of power, and the bodies in the basements, at least until the election is over)

Craig Fulgate* is the current director of FEMA, if you hadn't heard.

UPDATE via Insty:  Coney Island; Poor Black and Still in the Dark:

Nehemiah Mims, 80, who lives in nearby O’Dwyer Gardens on the 13th floor, left her apartment early the day Hurricane Sandy hit New York. “When Housing knocked on my door and asked was I staying or leaving—I left,” she told The Final Call laughing.

Ms. Mims, like hundreds of others, has found her way each day since the hurricane to the doors of the Coney Island Gospel Assembly at 29th and Neptune Ave. Ms. Mims finds a hot meal and needed supplies for her apartment, which she says still has no power, no heat and no hot water.

The Final Call visited the church Nov. 9, and according to reports, 35,000 public housing residents in Coney Island and Far Rockaway were still in the dark. Many of them had the same complaint that Ms. Mims had: “City not saying nothing.”

The NYC Housing Authority, however, did send out a notice that tenants would receive a rent credit for January due to the lack of services and temporary boilers would arrive by the end of the week.

Helluva Job, Fuggie - IV

New Yorkers walk six miles in the snow for food

After traveling six miles by foot and by bus to bring food home to her five children in Brooklyn’s Coney Island neighborhood, Cherry Barnett broke down in tears.

"I've had it,” she said. “I don't want to live here anymore. We can't live like this."

Maybe she should move to a nice red state somewhere where people  help take care of their neighbors.  But then, she'd probably vote like a blue-stater, so maybe not.

Doctors without borders coming to New York to treat Sandy victims:

In its first mission in the United States, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders is helping victims of superstorm Sandy which devastated much of the New York metropolitan area. In a makeshift clinic in a laundry room in Far Rockaway, a hard-hit section of Queens, doctors, nurses and medical students assess patients and help them get much needed medication.

Just like it was some third-world country. President Bush sent Americans to the third world. Under President Obama, the third world comes to you!

Long Island officials demand military intervention 

Two congressmen from Long Island are asking the White House to send federal employees to Long Island to take the lead role in restoring power to a region where tens of thousands of people remain in the dark 12 days after Superstorm Sandy.

U.S. Reps. Peter King and Steve Israel said they were sending a letter Friday requesting that personnel from the Army Corps of Engineers and Energy Department assume work of the Long Island Power Authority, whose work after the storm the congressmen called "abysmal." They echoed the criticism expressed earlier by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

"When the lights went off in Baghdad and the lights went off in Kabul, it was the Army Corps of Engineers that went into Baghdad and Kabul to turn the lights back on," said Israel, a Democrat. "We don't need to turn the lights back on in Kabul and Baghdad. We need to turn the lights back on in Plainview and Great Neck and the south shore."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency and some Army Corps personnel have been on Long Island for more than a week, but King, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he wants additional resources sent in.

Hurricane Sandy's Double Whammy

Not only can it destroy your property, but it can cause you to incur a big tax bill

Theoretically, our beloved Internal Revenue Code allows you to claim an itemized deduction — on Schedule A of your Form 1040 — for personal casualty losses to the extent they are not covered by insurance. Exactly what is a casualty loss? It’s when the fair market value of your property or asset is reduced or wiped out by a hurricane, flood, storm, fire, earthquake or volcanic eruption (not to mention sonic boom, theft or vandalism).

In reality, however, many disaster victims won’t qualify for any personal casualty loss write-offs because of the following two rules. First, you must reduce your loss by $100. Obviously, that’s no big deal. Then you must further reduce the loss by an amount equal to 10% of your adjusted gross income (AGI) for the year (AGI is the number at the bottom of page 1 of your Form 1040). That is a big deal. Say you incur a $20,000 personal casualty loss this year and have AGI of $100,000. Your write-off is a relatively puny $9,900 ($20,000 minus $100 minus $10,000). You get absolutely no tax break if your loss before the two required subtractions is $10,100 or less, and you have no chance at all if you don’t itemize.

OK, so you don't get a tax break, but above I said it could cause you to have a tax payment; how does that work?

When you have insurance coverage for disaster-related property damage — under a homeowners, renters, or business policy — you might actually have a taxable gain instead of a deductible casualty loss. Why? Because if the insurance proceeds exceed the tax basis of the damaged or destroyed property (normally equal to its cost), you have a taxable profit as far as the IRS is concerned. This is the case even if the insurance company doesn’t fully compensate you for the pre-casualty value of the property. These gains are called involuntary conversion gains — because the casualty event causes your property to suddenly be converted into cash from the insurance proceeds.

For example, you could have a big involuntary conversion gain if your valuable vacation home is heavily damaged or destroyed and your insurance coverage greatly exceeds what you paid for the property when you bought it years ago.

If you have an involuntary conversion gain, it generally must be reported as income on your Form 1040 unless you (1) make sufficient expenditures to repair or replace the property and (2) make a special tax election to defer the gain. If you make the election (you generally should), you have a taxable gain only to the extent the insurance proceeds exceed what you spend to repair or replace the property. The expenditures for repairs or replacement generally must occur within the period beginning on the date the property was damaged or destroyed and ending two years after the close of the tax year in which you have the involuntary conversion gain.

Nice, you get to rebuild your house, and send some money to the IRS for your trouble.  At least they let you stretch it out; it's not worth confiscating your house until it's been restored. 

Sorry About Celebrating Sandy

“I’m so glad we had that storm last week,” he said Tuesday.



Chris Matthews is an ass.

In other news, 46% of people surveyed claimed the the coverage of Sandy influenced their vote in the election.  In Katrina, the media decided that Bush would get the blame for  what ever came of the storm, and covered it accordingly.  For Sandy they decided that whatever happened, they would make Preznit Obama out to be the leader and hero.  The legacy media can't die fast enough.

Helluva Job, Fuggy* - II

FEMA closes New York disaster center because of a little rain...

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 Michael Bloomberg said that residents in the low-lying portions of Staten Island, Queens and Brooklyn 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.

“We do not believe that it’s necessary to evacuate people,” said the mayor Wednesday.

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 when she went there looking for food. "I need some help now."

I believe that New York went solidly for Obama.  As H.L. Menken observed:

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

*The current Director of FEMA is Craig Fugate.