Unprepared: There is No Plan
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What happened in New York and New Jersey after Superstorm Sandy?
And even though 13 years had passed since the storm, it almost felt like they were trapped in time, midway through a recovery. Here on Staten Island's seacoast, the community used to be tight-knit, with families living in little bungalows. Now it feels desolate. After the storm, some residents used recovery money to elevate their homes really high. Others took a buyout from the federal government. Their homes were leveled. And some did nothing. Their houses sit right as they were the night of the storm. It's kind of sad. Resident James Sinagra calls it the jack-o'-lantern effect. Imagine the teeth, jagged and irregularly spaced.
I mean, they should either make it into wetlands, like you can see down the road there, that's all wetlands, or they should at least give more of an incentive for a community to be built back up like these houses are built up.
It was hard to find people who thought the recovery had turned out well, even people who decided not to rebuild at all, like Joe Tyrone. He's a local realtor known for organizing one of the nation's first large-scale home buyout programs in Staten Island's Oakwood Beach neighborhood.
all they talked about when we were mucking out the houses, how much they loved the neighborhood. So I said, there's no way they're going to want to leave. But the reality is, first there was Isaac. That was bad. And then Irene came, put him back on their heels. And when Sandy came, that was a knockout punch. They were like, that's it. People died on the street. And they all knew each other.
He took me out to see the old neighborhood.
Why do some communities feel trapped in time after a disaster?
This is where my house was. See that ridge right there? That was my backyard right here. And the other side of that was another house.
What is the 'jack-o'-lantern effect' in disaster recovery?
Along with the federal government, the state spent more than $200 million buying out more than 500 homes on Staten Island, intending to turn the area back over to nature. As we drive around, it seems in some ways it worked. Where hundreds of homes once stood, there are long stretches of empty lots punctuated by a few isolated homes. But these holdouts? They mean the roads and the power lines have to stay. And as Tyrone pulls around the corner, he points to several empty lots with a chain-link fence around them. There have been rumors. So why does this have a fence?
Well, this is the exact area that the Staten Island Soccer League purchased from the state for some nominal amount. And they're going to build their soccer fields here.
So they're really doing this?
Oh, yeah, 100 percent they're doing it.
This youth soccer league, which has more than 4,000 players, bought six acres of buyout land from the state. They plan to build a soccer complex with bleachers. There's talk of a clubhouse. And everyone's going to need somewhere to park. Is this what you thought was going to happen when you sold your property?
How did the recovery efforts impact Staten Island residents?
No, no. When I sold my property, I thought it was just going to be like a big marsh and that I wouldn't even be able to get to my property.
That's the vision then-Governor Andrew Cuomo had promised. Wetlands and oyster beds that would soak up stormwater like a sponge.
We're now rebuilding oyster beds, wetlands and marshlands and grasslands. Why? Because they all had a purpose. They were all part of the balance.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What happened in New York and New Jersey after Superstorm Sandy?
0:59–2:33
2
Why do some communities feel trapped in time after a disaster?
2:33–2:39
3
What is the 'jack-o'-lantern effect' in disaster recovery?
2:39–3:46
4
How did the recovery efforts impact Staten Island residents?
3:46–7:13
5
What is the role of special interests in rebuilding communities?
7:13–29:11
Speakers
17 identified
Unnamed Expert on Bridge Safety 14 min
Unidentified Speaker (Brief Interjection) 3 min
Ron Rudson 1 min
Chris Millis 1 min
Congressman Chuck Edwards 1 min
Joe Tyrone 1 min
Vito Fussella 1 min
Laura Budd 1 min
Sean LaTourette
Mark Carney
Rick Wooten
Craig Fugate
Sarah McCammon
Shalana Jordan
James Sinagra
Bridget Wiltshire
Tanya Mosley
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