NEWS,31.10.2012

'The entire country's been watching,' Obama tells Sandy victims

US President Barack Obama and Republican Governor Chris Christie have been touring storm-stricken parts of New Jersey, taking in scenes of flooded roads and burning homes in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy.The huge storm crashed ashore on Monday, crippling transportation, knocking out power for millions and killing at least 60 people in nine states with a massive storm surge and rain that caused epic flooding.Obama and Christie, riding in the Marine One presidential helicopter, got an aerial view of some of the hardest-hit areas of the New Jersey shoreline, and afterward the president promised to cut through red tape to help storm victims.From the air in and around the gambling resort of Atlantic City, Obama saw whole streets underwater, beachfront homes swamped by flooding and piers partially blown away.He also saw the still-burning remnants of about eight homes set on fire during the storm, the biggest to hit the US mainland in generations."If your homes aren't too badly damaged we can hopefully get you back in," Obama told residents at an evacuation shelter in the town of Brigantine."The entire country's been watching. Everyone knows how hard Jersey has been hit.""We're not going to tolerate any red tape. We're not going to tolerate any bureaucracy," Obama said.Despite being a top surrogate for Obama's rival Mitt Romney in the November 6 election, Christie has kept up his praise for Obama for federal support during and after the devastating storm.Today he only good words for the Democratic president. "I want to thank the president for being here today," he said.Federal Emergency Management Administration director Craig Fugate is also travelling with Christie and Obama. Sandy has killed at least 60 people in the US Weather warnings remain in place as the centre of the storm moves across Pennsylvania towards Canada The government says the storm may be the most expensive in US history Some 5.9 million properties remain without power Large sections of NYC remain submerged by floodwater Many transport services - including most of the NYC subway - are out of action The New York Marathon will go on Sandy is causing more havoc as it moves north toward Canada. Flooding warnings are in effect in the Great Lakes region and heavy snow has been falling in the Appalachian mountains.Remnants of the storm churned slowly over Pennsylvania on Wednesday, the National Weather Service said. Winter storm warnings were in effect from southwestern Pennsylvania to eastern Tennessee.New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a media conference mandatory evacuations in the city would not be lifted until the affected buildings had been inspected. He said bridges and tunnels - except for the George Washington Bridge - would be restricted to high-occupancy vehicles for the next several days.Bloomberg also announced a relief package for small business for whom "the storm represents an enormous challenge". He said the package included access to loans of up to $US10,000.Bloomberg said that tap water in NYC had been "tested again and again and again" and was safe to drink.He confirmed that the New York Marathon would go ahead as planned, saying it was a "great event for New York" and he believed those who had died would want it to be held.Asked if he believed there was a link between storms such as Sandy and climate change he said it was safer to assume a link "the consequences of making a mistake in one direction are pretty severe".The New York Stock Exchange reopened on Wednesday US time after being closed for two days. Packed buses took commuters to work with the subway system halted after seawater flooded its tunnels.More than half of all petrol stations in the New York City area and New Jersey were shut, with many running dry.John F Kennedy and Newark airports reopened with limited service after thousands of flights were cancelled, leaving travellers stuck for days.New York's LaGuardia Airport, the third of the airports that serve the nation's busiest airspace, was flooded and remained closed.Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the storm may be the most expensive in US history."Now we are looking at flooding on Lake Erie, possibly Lake Michigan," Napolitano said."We're looking at secondary flooding downstream as rivers fill with the remnants of Sandy and the water has to go somewhere."We are now in recovery mode - response and recovery - we are moving large amounts of resources into the affected areas."It will be one of the most, probably if not the most, extensive and expensive (storms) in our nation's history."One disaster-modeling company said Sandy may have caused up to $US15 billion in insured losses.The storm killed 27 people in New York state, including 22 in New York City, and six each in New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Five other states reported fatalities.Sandy killed 69 people in the Caribbean last week as a hurricane before it slammed into the US east coast with winds of about 130km/h and pushed inland.Battered by a record storm surge of nearly 4.2 metres, large sections of New York City remained submerged under several feet of water on Wednesday.In the city's borough of Staten Island, police used helicopters to pluck stranded residents from rooftops.Across the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey, members of the National Guard helped residents pump floodwater from their homes, the city said on Twitter.Chest-high floodwaters rushed into the streets in a flash on Monday night just after the power went out, and by Wednesday morning the water was still knee high in many areas of Hoboken.National Guard vehicles patrolled the streets but emergency vehicles were scarce, witnesses Some 5.9 million homes and businesses in several states remained without power on Wednesday morning, down from a high of nearly 8.5 million, which surpassed the record 8.4 million customers who went dark from last year's Hurricane Irene.In New Jersey, Christie said it could take seven to 10 days before power was restored statewide.In the southern half of Manhattan, a quarter of a million residents remained without power after a transformer explosion at a Consolidated Edison substation on Monday night and the flooding of another. Citywide, some 760,000 customers lacked power on Wednesday.

Hurricane Sandy Disrupts Food Distribution, 'Thousands Of Trucks' In Limbo

 

Thousands of truckloads of food that were headed for stores in the Northeast are stuck on roadsides and in warehouses following the crippling blow Hurricane Sandy dealt to the nation's food distribution system.Though the system is struggling in the face of uncertainty, no one who spoke to HuffPost on Tuesday was concerned about short-term food shortages or a storm-related increase in prices across the region. Still, the hurricane demonstrates just how complex and vulnerable the networks are that deliver America's food supply. "I've got thousands of trucks that are sitting on the East Coast," said Ed Chouinard of Perishable Distribution Solutions (PDS), a nationwide network of meat and perishable cargo delivery trucks based in Chicago. "For our clients, it's almost entirely a question of whether or not they have power, and right now we're calling around everywhere [in New York and New Jersey] and no one's open." Experts and food distributors declined on Tuesday to speculate on the impact Sandy might have on food industry bottom lines, noting that suppliers had ample warning about the coming storm and price gouging on staples like food is illegal. Nonetheless, they were eager to see supply lines return to normal.Chouinard said his company typically delivers New York-bound meat to two wholesale meat markets, the Hunts Point Market and the Brooklyn Market -- neither of which had restored power on Tuesday."I gotta make a decision this afternoon about whether my drivers should leave Chicago with today's shipment," Chouinard said, "but I don't think we're going to be shipping today. We'll reassess later in the week." For residents in some of the most devastated areas, like the Jersey Shore and parts of Queens, N.Y., the PDS meat delivery interruption is just one in a series of food deliveries stalled by the storm, many of which were bound for supermarkets and restaurants that have yet to reopen. Preparations made before the storm, however, mean there is little chance of an outright food shortage, Chouinard said."Most of the grocery stores will have a lot of inventory and backup generators," said Chouinard. "Most warehouses have one or two weeks worth of inventory. But people don't shop much for food if they've got no power. There's more likely to be a surge in demand when the power comes back on, because then everyone's restocking. But there won't be a shortage."New York City had reopened some of its bridges by Wednesday afternoon, though the Holland and Hugh Carey Tunnels remained closed, according to the New York Department of Transportation. Many sections of lower Manhattan remained without power, leaving stores and restaurants unable to safely store food -- even if trucks managed to deliver it.In New Jersey, parts of many major highways remained closed on Tuesday afternoon. At one section of the New Jersey Turnpike near the hard-hit Jersey Shore, entire railroad cars had even been swept onto the highway by the storm surge. Two and a half million people -- or 62 percent of the state -- lost power during the storm. The storm's effect in the Garden State was also evident in the number of supermarkets forced to close during the storm -- the popular regional chain ShopRite listed 97 locations in New Jersey that closed due to the storm. By late Tuesday, some had reopened, including a ShopRite in Garwood, N.J. According to Westfield, N.J. resident Sara Soriente, the store was open "and stocked with not just food, but also ice and firewood."In Pennsylvania, more than 400 roads were still closed on Tuesday afternoon. West Virginia, which was hit by blizzards due to Sandy, had shut down parts of the major highway across the top of the state on Tuesday, along with more than 30 other routes.Large-scale road closures greatly impact food distribution systems, said Charley Wilson, VP of corporate communications at major food distributor Sysco. The company, which supplies products mainly to healthcare facilities, restaurants and schools, has been working around the clock to prepare clients for the storm, Wilson said, "to make sure they had enough staples in advance. You hope that holds them until we can get back on the roads."Wilson said dangerous road conditions, not power outages, were the biggest hindrance to Sysco deliveries in the tri-state area on Tuesday. "As soon as we've been given the signal that there's safe passage and flooding is receding, we'll begin the process of getting food to our partners whether they have power or not," he said. He added that the company has been working closely with disaster relief agencies, "to make sure we're some of the first responders and we're ready to go back in as soon as it's safe."But even quick responses and good planning are no match for the threat posed to perishable foods by a prolonged power outage, said Cary Miller of Food Industry News, a trade publication. A veteran consultant for food services, Miller said that even after power is restored and streets are cleared, "the host of sanitation issues that food service operations will be facing are paralyzing" including repairs, flood clean-up and food safety. When it comes to compromised food, however, it's not just restaurants and supermarkets that need to take precautions against food-borne illnesses. Individuals also need to be extra vigilant, both during and after a power outage, to ensure that food at home is kept cold enough to prevent the spread of bacteria, especially for meat. On Tuesday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie released a series of food storage guidelines for residents affected by the storm.But as people in the tri-state area worry this week about delivering, buying, and storing food, in parts of New York City, the food industry was back in business almost immediately following the storm. On Tuesday morning, many bodegas, grocery stores and restaurants in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, opened their doors to customers, in spite of fallen trees that had destroyed cars and storefronts during the night.“We anticipated there might be problems getting food delivered and ordered extra supplies last week,” said Mike Saadi, the owner of Bergen Bagels on Myrtle Avenue, while serving up bagels to a long line of Pratt Institute students. “Everyone needs bagels during a storm,” Saadi said.An Associated Supermarket in Brooklyn was also open and well stocked on Tuesday morning. Fedelia Edwin, an assistant manager, said that while the storm halted a delivery of about 2,000 cases of food from New Jersey, it wasn't enough to deplete stocks. "We still have enough to make it through the rest of the week at least," she said.In Manhattan, the Fairway grocery store on 74th Street and Broadway was crowded with shoppers browsing the aisles, many of whom left with just one or two bags of groceries. Bread, milk, produce, and canned goods were all well stocked, although meats and Grade-A large eggs were harder to come by.Carol Gordon carried about three pounds of ground beef in her shopping basket, a purchase she decided to make when she saw the depleted meat section. “I hadn’t thought about trucks not being able to come in,” she said. “We’re spoiled on the Upper West Side, but this is the worst I’ve seen it. And it’s naive to think we could not be affected.”

US storm damage set to cost $20bn

Bill Keogh, president of disaster estimator Eqecat, confirmed the company's estimates of $5bn to $10bn in insured losses and $10bn to $20bn in total losses from Hurricane Sandy, which came ashore in New Jersey late on Monday and swept northward, knocking out power for more than eight million customers and shutting down four major cities."We think that's about right. ...It will be among the 10 to 15 most damaging storms" that have hit the United States, he told Bloomberg television.He said the assessments on real damages from wind and flooding-related losses and the costs of business shutdowns will take some time to collect."At this stage we're really just getting out facts from the ground... That will take a while."Fitch Ratings said that aside from physical damage from winds and flooding, it expects significant insurance claims from companies over lost business."While many lines of insurance will be affected, including property and auto, there is the potential for significant business interruption and contingent business interruption losses related to the flooding as the affected areas work to restore power and resume operations following the storm," Fitch said."The massive storm is impacting a wide variety of businesses in densely populated areas, including retail, corporate offices, transportation, manufacturing, and energy plants."Economists at IHS Global Insight said they expect the physical losses to top the $15bn of Hurricane Irene of last year."With Sandy being a much larger storm, it is likely to end up causing more flooding damage than its 2011 peer which would increase total damage estimates," said IHS economists Gregory Daco and Nigel Gault in a report on the storm."The commercial shutdown of the East Coast is likely to result in gross domestic product losses that may outweigh infrastructure damages," they added.While some losses to economic production will be recovered in rebuilding spending, they said, not all can be regained.Combining all of the disruptions from Sandy, they said, "early estimates point toward total economic losses of around $30bn to $50bn."That was still small compared to the $120bn in economic damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the US Gulf of Mexico coastline in 2005, but still enough to reduce the economic growth rate in the fourth quarter by 0.6% points, they said.