Global news: Before Sandy

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Richard McLachlan, a NZ expatriate, lives in Brooklyn in Ditmas Park, a neighbourhood some say is the most diverse in the USA. After many years of watching at a distance from New Zealand he has moved there to observe big changes at close quarters - in particular the upheavals in the banking and finance sectors and the impact (or lack of it) of global warming and climate change on the political process. He's in the US as both a participant in, and observer of the way Americans cope with the situation in which they now find themselves.

Before Sandy

'Before Sandy' is already part of the way I see New York. Already it is possible to talk about Coney Island, Rockaway Beach, the Jersey Shore as they were 'before Sandy' - iconic seaside resorts with boardwalks and hotdog stands. For more than one reason the events of these two weeks will be in the collective memory for some time. Hurricane Sandy is now being called the 'October Surprise', the unexpected turn of events that can re-characterise an election.

An example; 'Before Sandy' we were in Manhattan around ten one night, on the Lower East Side. We were waiting to cross a very busy intersection. Yellow taxis were weaving and honking. A black Lamborghini slid past at knee level. A bearded young gent on roller skates with one hand in his pocket, the other smoking a cigarette, casually rolled into the traffic as though he were just another car in the mix - except without the body armour. That level of cool is just one of the many Friday night events that New Yorkers casually ignore and visitors are unable to stop staring at.

Lower Manhattan was at full pulse. Saxophone players were shaping the night air. People were pouring into and out of the subways. Restaurants in basements, clubs in basements, shop owners loading goods into basements and, finally, people were going home to, or going out from basements. In one night all those basements were filled with water.

When you see a car floating down the street you can be sure the basements are full. The basement, by the way, is where many if not most buildings in the US have the boilers that provide the heat in this fast-approaching winter.

Today, answering a call for volunteers, we went out to Rockaway Beach. It was a bit of a front line for Hurricane Sandy. It is a front line shared with Staten Island, Coney Island, Fire Island and the whole of the Jersey Shore, places where things got badly trashed by the storm. To get to the beach we walked down suburban streets between banks of sand thrown up by the sea - and banks of possessions thrown out of the basements onto the pavement. Piles and piles of stuff lay waiting to be picked up by lines of garbage trucks. Tables, chairs, mattresses, wet insulation, stoves, refrigerators, and piles of spoiled food outside the shops. It was added to continually as we passed, by residents walking back and forth to the curb side from their buildings.

The sea swept across the four or so blocks of this 11 mile long but narrow sand-spit covered in buildings. It destroyed much of the 5 mile historic boardwalk and profoundly affected the lives many of its 130,000 residents. You can see the debris still clinging to the chain link fences, marking the height of the flood at around five feet. Houses along the beach front were wrecked. They sit there naked, their interiors open for all to see, water still spurting out of broken plumbing.

Moving along the peninsula toward the Far Rockaways there are long rows of multi-story housing projects. Like everyone else on the Rockaway Peninsula, they have no power and thus no functioning elevators, no gas to cook with, and no heating. Twelve days after the storm and there is still no way to cook food. Apparently the power cannot be turned back on until all the basements are pumped out.

It's very cold out there now in late autumn. It's woolly hat and jacket weather. Some members of the Army reserves were there in Hummers helping distribute drinking water, flashlights, and batteries. The Mormon youth army were very active helping people clean stuff out of their houses. The Salvation Army was handing out blankets, food, and a vast mountain of donated clothing. I watched lines of people patiently but inefficiently going in both directions through a single narrow door into a crowded church gym to get donations. In church halls claimed back from the mud and sand black plastic bags of undifferentiated clothing were sorted into piles of women's jeans, men's jackets, blankets, and shoes.

Six days after the storm there is still no way to cook, no way to get up to the 20th floor other than by the stairs, or to keep warm in the dark that quickly follows sunset at a quarter to five. As we returned to Brooklyn in the early evening almost all the buildings were in darkness. Rolling down the boulevard between the piles of trashed possessions we pass a very big launch sitting out of its element in the middle of the street. Security is active both day and night and everywhere there are flashing red and blue lights and sirens.

On TV recently a woman from Staten Island was begging for help for her community to not be forgotten. Staten Island was devastated by Hurricane Sandy. I haven't been out there but in the Rockaways I found myself wondering why there weren't army field kitchens serving hot food every day, reservists getting the basements pumped out so the power could be restored, huge generators everywhere. In other words why the armed forces could not be deployed in much greater numbers to do what they are so good at - logistics. Instead, my partner watched a soldier offering someone a box of dried food with the instructions, "shake it and it'll get hot."

Governor Cuomo has been on TV tonight telling people to be calm, that the services were being connected, that the power was coming back on in places, that there was fuel on the way. But people were talking about riots at gas stations today - fifty people 'going at it'. It's not surprising when people are queuing for hours every day to get fuel for their generators and competing with lines of cars to do so.

Tonight around 6.30 I walked to the shops to buy ingredients for dinner. A line of cars stretched down our street, around the corner into Coney Island Avenue then down a long block to the gas station. I counted ninety cars. At the end of the line the gas station was shut. Hours later we went back out. The line was still there. The driver at the front of the line had been sitting there for 12 hours. A big crowd of people were waiting with jerry cans to get fuel for their generators. Some gas was being pumped, but the next morning the situation was the same. Gas lines have become 'the new normal' and only a few days have passed.

One interesting feature of this ongoing crisis is the makeup of the groups helping. Of course the Churches are involved, the Red Cross is out in force, FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Service) and the police and army reserves are in evidence. But in Church halls and gymnasiums confident but 'unmarked' young people are busily organising piles of donated clothes, blankets, nappies, bottled water, and cleaning supplies. People just turn up with a barbecue, piles of sausages, ketchup, mustard and bread rolls - and start cooking and serving. They move into devastated premises with brooms and mops, setting up tables and organising lines of people to collect what they need.

Occupy Wall Street has responded to obvious need and, for now, become Occupy Sandy. Not that the need to occupy Wall Street has suddenly vanished but new people are turning up every day and learning how to organise, to get car pools working and ferrying people from the neighbourhoods of Brooklyn out to the far coastal and forgotten regions.

The faintly derisive local asides about New York hipsters start to look a bit tired. I realise that any one of the young men dragging black plastic bags of blankets into makeshift distribution centres could only a week ago have been on roller skates, coolly oblivious to the blare of horns as he slipped into the traffic on 2nd Avenue and E. Houston in the Lower East Side.