Four Lessons from Hurricane Sandy ›

Cemetery in Vermont torn up by Hurricane Irene, September 2011. More at Burlington Free Press.

(via architectureofdoom)

Two financial deals that kept the National Football League playing in the Superdome, allowing New Orleans to host a 10th Super Bowl, were expensive for taxpayers and enriched Saints owner Tom Benson, said former Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco.

Taxpayers have spent at least $471 million on the Superdome since Hurricane Katrina, allowing a state reeling from the nation’s most-expensive natural disaster to keep its pro sports teams and rebuild a part of downtown destroyed by the 2005 storm. Benson, meanwhile, is worth $1.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, after acquiring the National Basketball Association’s New Orleans Hornets, a 26-story office tower that houses state agencies and a mall next to the stadium.

Subsidies for Saints Owner Open New Orleans to Super Bowl - Bloomberg investigative report.

Rescue search ends: Captain and one crew went down with their ship. Still unclear why Walbridge decided to sail into Hurricane Sandy.

Coast Guard concludes HMS Bounty captain went down with ship

While questions will remain about Bounty Capt. Robin Walbridge’s decision to brave Cape Hatteras, N.C., during a hurricane, his ultimate legacy, his family says, will be one that goes back to the origins of global seafaring: his final act of putting his crew and ship above himself.

After 90 hours of searching some 12,000 square miles of open ocean, the US Coast Guard on Friday suspended the search for Mr. Walbridge, who had captained the 180-foot three-master for 17 years. The boat was a near-exact replica of the 18th-century “square rigger” that became the scene of a mutiny that inspired half a dozen Hollywood movies.

In the end, the Coast Guard concluded that the Bounty’s loss to Hurricane Sandy took two lives. Claudene Christian, who joined the Bounty in May and claimed an ancestral link to Bounty mutineer Fletcher Christian, died after being pulled out of the waters on Monday.

But as the Coast Guard made its condolences and began an investigation into the sinking, his family hailed Walbridge for being the consummate captain in his efforts to make sure that the rest of the crew survived after it became clear that the Bounty was going to sink.

“He always looked after his crew first,” his sister, Lucille Jansen, told Reuters. “That’s the last memory we’ll have of him because he did exactly what a captain should do. He made sure the crew was safe.”

Born in Vermont, Walbridge grew up in Florida, where he turned a teenage love of sailing into a career, first as a houseboat mechanic on the Suwanee River, then captaining the Governor Stone, Vision Quest and Bill of Rights as he earned his 50-, 100- and 500-ton captain’s licenses.

His work on tall ships began on the Tall Ship “HMS” Rose, and he moved on to the Bounty in 1995. According to his biography, the Bounty would have sunk at the docks in Fall River, Mass., without Walbridge’s efforts to raise renovation funds. He also served as guest captain on the USS Constitution when it made its inaugural sail in 1997, after the ship had sat dockside for 116 years.

Full story, NBC

kateoplis:

Monmouth Beach, New Jersey | In Focus

hyperallergic:

Some Help for Artists, Galleries, Private Collections and Museums Impacted by Hurricane Sandy

As the Eastern Seaboard continues to recover from Hurricane Sandy, those impacted by the devastating storm are slowly coming to terms with the shock of losing art, furniture and other possessions, but we want them to know there are a few resources that can possibly help them with their recovery.

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Romney busted for faking hurricane relief event:

the night before the event, campaign aides went to a local Wal-Mart and spent $5,000 on granola bars, canned food, and diapers to put on display while they waited for donations to come in, according to one staffer.

“You need a donation to get in line!” Empty-handed supporters pled for entrance, with one woman asking, “What if we dropped off our donations up front?” The volunteer gestured toward a pile of groceries conveniently stacked near the candidate. “Just grab something,” he said. Two teenage boys retrieved a jar of peanut butter each, and got in line. When it was their turn, they handed their “donations” to Romney.

Full ridic, here…

Breezy Point, Queens. 80 Homes were lost to fire caused by Hurricane Sandy.

Report: “The Deadliest, Costliest, and most Intense U.S. Tropical Cyclones from 1851 to 2010 (and other frequently requested hurricane facts)”

Nifty PDF. Technical, but easy to read and focused on U.S. storms. Shows the rank, year, paths on maps, deaths, damage, and economic impacts of several storms over the past century. 46 pages. Looks like Hurricane Sandy will be ranked 6th.

I spoke to the president three times yesterday… I said, if you can expedite designating New Jersey as a major disaster area that that would help us to get federal money and resources in here as quickly as possible to help clean up the damage here. The president was great last night. He said he would get it done. At 2 a.m. I got a call from FEMA to answer a couple of final questions and then he signed the declaration this morning. So I have to give the president great credit. He’s been on the phone with me three times in the last 24 hours. He’s been very attentive, and anything that I’ve asked for, he’s gotten to me. So, I thank the president publicly for that. He’s done — as far as I’m concerned — a great job for New Jersey.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie • Lauding President Obama’s attentiveness in the face of Hurricane Sandy, in an interview on Fox and Friends this morning. Christie’s rhetoric on the President’s leadership abilities hasn’t always been so glowing — back in May, he excoriated Obama as “walking around in a dark room trying to find the light switch of leadership.” But now, faced with a climactic disaster in his state, Christie and Obama have made nice, to the vast betterment of the citizens of his state. Obviously, holding off on political rivalries during such a chaotic and traumatic event is the right thing to do, but Christie deserves a major measure of credit for recognizing Obama’s efforts for his state. When asked whether Mitt Romney would tour some storm sites, he went much further than he needed to, showing a sincerity unbound by partisan priority: “…I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested. I’ve got a job to do here in New Jersey that’s much bigger than presidential politics and I could care less about any of that stuff.” source (via shortformblog)

Meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile (wtf, republicans!).

The unprecedented surge from Sandy’s floodwaters took a bite out of the core of the Big Apple’s infrastructure, knocking out power to electrical substations and crippling a subway system used daily by more than 4 million people.

The storm’s impact should be a wake-up call that the city – and the rest of the nation – needs to better prepare for the dangers of the coastal flooding, which is likely to become more frequent in the decades ahead, experts say.

NBC tip toes into climate adaptation territory.

Senator John Kerry, volunteering at local disaster office here in Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Romney holds a ‘Victory Rally’ in Ohio with a NASCAR race car driver.

I’ve never seen anything like this and I’m at a loss for expletives to describe what this storm could do.

a “very prominent and respected National Weather Service meteorologist” on his Facebook page last night, regarding Perfect Storm Sandy. (via washingtonpoststyle)

Fresh update on Hurricane Sandy. Looks New England bound. ›

Hello, Hurricane Sandy.