NYY Langone Payroll Heard On The Street

NYU employees of the closed buildings will not be paid after November. Meanwhile, the Board Of Trustees are midway through a $3 billion capital raising program.

NYC Hurricane Sandy - Hospital Evacuations and Berger Commission - FAIL

Why is it acceptable for us to allow hospitals go through such desperate attempts to equally and adequately fund the healthcare needs of patients ? Look at the consequences of the blackouts of New York City hospitals in Lower Manhattan.

The issue before us is whether the rebuilding of our hospitals will continue to favour wealthy institutions, which primarily serve the well-insured, or will we use this opportunity to examine and fix the unequal distribution of healthcare in New York created by the Berger Commission ?

As it is, we are on a path that will continue to force us to accept less and less. Look at how nursing homes were instructed by health officials not to evacuate, and then they are criticised by the Department of Health for unacceptable conditions compounded precisely because they were instructed not to evacuate. Is this acceptable ?

If we believe in the dignity and equality of all people, then our healthcare system must be reformed to provide patient care-centered healthcare, to equally meet the needs of all patients. Please support a truly universal, single-payer healthcare system.

Obama Wins, reports CNN

CNN reports that it projects that President Obama wins.

Coney Island Election Problems

2013 New York City Mayoral Candidate Bill Thompson posted this photograph on Facebook with this caption :

"I just witnessed chaos at 2950 West 33rd Street poll site in Coney Island. The site didn't open until after 9 a.m., and then the machines were not ready. This is the line to vote."

I posted a comment on the photograph, thanking Mr. Thompson for sharing this information. I also asked Mr. Thompson if he would help bring reforms to the Board of Elections. Later in the day, when I went to blog this photo, I noticed that I had been unfriended by Mr. Thompson. So, I guess he won't agree to help bring reforms to the Board of Elections ?

Bellevue Morgue Under Water

In a post about the final two patients still remaining at Bellevue Hospital, The New York Times obtained details about some of the severe conditions inside the hospital's morgue :

The sources also said that after Hurricane Sandy hit, the Bellevue morgue was under water, so the bodies of patients who died of their illnesses after the storm had to be kept elsewhere. Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner, confirmed that the Bellevue morgue had been flooded, but that with the assistance of the medical examiner, the bodies had been put on higher racks to keep them out of the water.

She did not know how many bodies there were. Ms. Borakove said the medical examiner’s morgue, which is separate, remained dry.

What is missing from these incremental reports about the deteriorating conditions at many hospitals in the wake of Hurricane Sandy is the failure of the mayor's emergency management plan that did not anticipate for infrastructure failures.

Not only that, but the New York State Department of Health has responsibility, for the irresponsible distribution of hospital beds in Manhattan. After nine New York City hospitals have closed, how do Gov. Andrew Cuomo ; Dr. Nirav Shah, the Secretary of the State Department of Health ; Stephen Berger, who continues to advocate for still yet more hospital closings ; and other statue health officials now view the issue of reducing the number of hospitals, when a mass civilian trauma event or natural disaster can destroy the infrastructure of the fewer remaining hospitals we have now ?

Here's an Associated Press video of the beginning of the evacuation of Bellevue Hospital :

Bill Rudin, Marathon Organisers Hoarding 41 Generators Whilst NYC Still In Dark

Related : NYC Hurricane Sandy - Hospital Evacuations and Berger Commission #EPICFAIL

Mayor Concedes To Critics : Cancels Marathon : What Took So Long ?

Race organisers, including the Rudin Family, the New York Road Runners Club, and ING, used Mayor Michael Bloomberg to be the fall guy for criticism about the city using valuable resources to hold the New York City Marathon. Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg was forced to cancel the marathon after The New York Post reported that at least 41 generators were being hoarded by race officials. Meanwhile, large numbers of New York City residents were rendered homeless with little to no resources for food, shelter, heat, health, or safety in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

Many storm victims were outraged at all the resources, not just power generators, that were being hoarded by marathon organisers for the sole benefit of runners.

"Runners were set to dine on a lavish Saturday-evening pre-race meal that included lemon-thyme chicken with shallot jus, and autumn vegetable bow-tie pasta primavera with extra virgin oil and fresh herbs — which most storm victims would have killed for," reported The New York Post.

"More than 2,000 cops are typically assigned to work the marathon. About five years ago, the city started privatizing medical coverage at the event, although scores of city paramedics and EMTs are still assigned to the race," reported The New York Daily News.

Bill Rudin Hospital Evacuations and NYC Marathon Reality Check

Bill Rudin said that it would be safe to close St. Vincent's Hospital, which was the only Level I Trauma Center and full-service hospital in the Lower West Side of Manhattan. He and his billion-dollar real estate development company got easy building permits, zone-busting waivers, and approvals from New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. At the time, Mr. Rudin and Speaker Quinn said that if people in Lower Manhattan became sick, or if there was a mass civilian trauma event, patients could be transported to Bellevue Hospital, which was the next closest Level I Trauma Center.

But the aftermath of hospital evacuations at NYU Langone and Bellevue Hospitals following destruction by caused by Hurricane Sandy expose the risks of the Rudin Condo Conversion Plan approved for St. Vincent's Hospital.

Note that the NYC Marathon would have three giant electricity generators, which would be used for the media tent, meanwhile, NYU Langone and Bellevue Hospitals had to be evacuated due to backup generator failures.

Watch this NBC News report about the hurricane destruction. Note that Mr. Rudin is a sponsor of the NYC Marathon, and he wants the Marathon to still take place this week-end, even though first responders haven't yet finished recovering all the dead bodies on Staten Island, or, for that matter, ensuring public safety or providing emergency care to the people rendered homeless by the tsunami of the storm surge and flooding.

When Will Mike Bloomberg Ring Opening Bell For NYU Langone, Bellevue Hospitals ?

Hurricane Sandy Bloomberg Nursing Home Evacuation Scandal

Rockaway Beach Nursing Homes Told Not To Evacuate Ahead Of Hurricane Sandy, Officials Say

Five nursing homes in floods zones in New York City were told by officials not to evacuate before Hurricane Sandy made landfall, The Huffington Post reported.

Residents of the nursing homes, which were located just blocks off the New York City coastline with the Atlantic Ocean, experienced the horror of Hurricane Sandy's destructive winds, rains, and storm surge.

"It was like Niagara Falls," said an employee, who asked to remain anonymous, about the four foot flooding on the first floor of Rockaway Care Center.

"The New York Office of Emergency Management did not return multiple calls or emails about the condition of the nursing homes, the status of the residents, or the decision not to evacuate prior to the storm," reported The Huffington Post.

While politicians, such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, and Queens Borough President Helen Marshall tour some of the areas devastated by Hurricane Sandy, politicians are using the emergency with the subway system and the power outages to cover up for the hospital evacuation crisis, this nursing home crisis, and the upcoming Election Day voting crisis.

Gary Tilzer, the political journalist, posted a blog post in which he asked, "Why Is the Media Silent On the Board of Elections Lack of A Plan to Allow People to Vote in the Black Out Areas ?"

Hurricane Sandy - Bellevue, NYU, and Coler Hospital Evacuations - Political Accountability

Who is politically accountable for the failure of the emergency management plan in response to Hurricane Sandy that lead to infrastructure failure at New York City hospitals ?

Following the infrastructure failure of critical hospitals in New York City because of flooding and storm surge associated with Hurricane Sandy and related power failures, some healthcare activists began to demand answers for the failure of New York City's emergency management planning. The fault does not lie with the doctors and medical staff at the impacted hospitals ; rather, the politicians in charge of the city's emergency management plan must account for this irresponsible and dangerous situation. How could it be that New York City's resources would prioritise reopening business when critical hospitals could be left in the dark ? One activist has posted a new YouTube video requesting political accountability for the dangerous risks posed to public health by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's lack of real emergency planning.

Video Link : http://youtu.be/ggjOOjbTKZs

Background

In the community effort to demand a replacement hospital for St. Vincent's, politicians imposed on the community the burden of participating in a needs assessment to determine if a full-service hospital was required in the Lower West Side of Manhattan.

"The hospital evacuations following the destruction by Hurricane Sandy expose the risks of the Rudin Condo Conversion Plan approved for St. Vincent's Hospital," said Louis Flores, an activist who produced this YouTube video. "New York City needs a Level I Trauma Center and full-service hospital in the Lower West Side for disaster recovery efforts. And New York City needs real resources to improve the infrastructure of all of our hospitals, including Coler Hospital on Roosevelt Island and SUNY Downstate Hospital in Brooklyn."

Hurricane Irene

In 2011, St. Vincent's activists organized a mass civilian trauma event exercise to demonstrate what grassroots community activists described was a major risk to public health : where would sick and injured patients receive emergency and trauma care in the event of a major national disaster under conditions that had created an irresponsible geographic distribution of hospital beds in Manhattan.

See related link : http://thevillager.com/villager_443/traumadrama.html

Hurricane Sandy

In the time leading up to and following the landfall of the effects of Hurricane Sandy, the infrastructure of full-service hospitals on the East Side of Manhattan has failed. Hospital patients were forced to be evacuated from NYU Langone and Bellevue Hospitals.

To Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Speaker Christine Quinn, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, to City Planner Amanda Burden, Brad Hoylman, Bill Rudin, and to the Partnership for New York, where are New Yorkers supposed to go now, in case of a medical emergency ?

Hurricane Sandy Exposes Risks of Closing of St. Vincent's Hospital

Hurricane Sandy Exposes Risks Of Closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.

The New York City Fire Department is helping Bellevue Hospital evacuate some of it patients, the Associated Press has reported.

Bellevue Hospital lost power during the blackout created by the storm surge, flooding, and damage from Hurricane Sandy.

Even with backup power operating, the Associated Press reported that the power outage had left many sections of Bellevue Hospital in the dark and rendered major medical equipment unusable without access to electricity.

After St. Vincent's Hospital was closed, activists had demanded that politicians explain how mass trauma events would be handled with the irresponsible geographical distribution of hospital beds in Manhattan created by the Rudin Luxury Condo Conversion plan approved by New York City Council Christine Quinn.

After St. Vincent's Hospital closed, a Gross Imbalance in the Distribution of Hospital Beds in Manhattan

Verizon Headquarters Flooded Hurricane Sandy

Related : NYC Hurricane Sandy - Hospital Evacuations and Berger Commission #EPICFAIL

Superstorm Sandy may have done damage to all the major phone services, more or less. But for Verizon, there was another price to pay: damage to its New York corporate headquarters.

The picture above, tweeted by the company itself, shows the Verizon lobby at 140 West Street in Manhattan, filled with three feet of water at about 9:30 PM ET last night. It isn’t just an administrative building — it also serves hundreds of thousands of voice and data circuits in New York.

Says Verizon director of media relations Bill Kula: “We’ll continue to work safely and quickly to pump out the storm water, re-route traffic from non working central office to others, get backup generator power operating, and hope that the local power company can restore commercial power as quickly as possible.”

Read more : Hurricane Sandy floods Verizon's corporate headquarters in New York City

Salt Water Corrosive Damage NYC Hurricane Sandy

Salt water damage is expected to damage the fragile, ancient electrical and switching systems of the New York City subway system. The Wall Street Journal published examples of some ways that salt water can damage the subway system :

Salt can eat at motors, metal fasteners and the electronic parts, some many decades old, that keep the system running. Salt water, and the deposits it leaves behind, degrades the relays that run the signal system, preventing train collisions.

Salt water also conducts electricity, which can exacerbate damage to signals if the system isn't powered down before a flood.

But the engineering risks don't just exist for the New York City subway system, but also to the construction materials of buildings, which were exposed to storm surge flooding.

Construction materials made of iron or steel that are exposed to water will rust and alter its shape and size. Building interiors, especially basements, when exposed to water, must be dried, otherwise constructions materials, such as metal fasteners or iron or steel beams, may continue to corrode long after the storm surge flooding subsides. If long-term moisture continues untreated, or if the ground becomes over-saturated by salt water, creating , the oxidation and rusting may cause construction materials made of iron and steel to fail.

Just like consumer affairs agencies advise drivers to avoid buying flood-damaged cars, what is the New York City Department of Buildings doing to secure the integrity of buildings and construction sites, which were exposed to the corrosive salt water storm surge flooding from Hurricane Sandy ?

JetBlue La Guardia Hurricane Sandy Update

Photographs showing the state of flooding on the runways and taxi areas at La Guardia Airport were posted by JetBlue on its blog today. One alarming photograph shows that the taxi areas around La Guardia Airport are underwater.

Glad I made it out of NYC Sunday at 11 pm on last AA flight out! Picture from LGA today by JetBlue #sandy twitter.com/vincentlaforet…

— Vincent Laforet (@vincentlaforet) October 30, 2012

Jackson Heights Hurricane Sandy Initial Damage Photographs

Related : Related : Hurricane Sandy - Political Accountability For Hospital Evacuations

Related : NYC Hurricane Sandy - Hospital Evacuations and Berger Commission #EPICFAIL

Initial Jackson Heights - Hurricane Sandy Damage Photographs

On Tuesday morning, residents of Jackson Heights, Queens, tried to assess the damage to their neighborhood from the rain and wind gusts from Hurricane Sandy. The local Starbucks was closed, and local people looked disoriented and desperate for over-priced coffee.

There were some downed trees.

Nobody knows when the New York City subway system will re-open. Many subway tunnels are flooded from the storm surge.

The seemingly minor damage in some parts of Jackson Heights was met with gratitude by residents. People in other parts of Queens and the rest of New York City were not so fortunate.

Now that Hurricane Sandy has moved on, the recovery efforts will get underway.