Chris Cristie Hecked At Sandy Event

Via ABC News:

This is why some people love him ... and some people hate him. N.J. Gov. Chris Christie, appearing along the Jersey Shore to mark the second anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, got heckled by a local activist and former councilman. So Christie did what he does -- fire back. “I’m glad you had your day to show off, but we’re the ones who are here to actually do the work,” Christie said from behind an official podium placed in a Belmar, N.J., intersection. "So turn around, get your 15 minutes of fame and then maybe take your jacket off, roll up your sleeves and maybe do something for the people of this state." Christie summed up: “So listen, you want to have the conversation later, I’m happy to have it, buddy. But until that time, sit down and shut up.”

NYC Flood Risk: 20X Greater Than 1844

This won't come as a surprise to anybody who lived here during Hurricane Sandy. Via Mashable:

In a sign of the shift to a riskier coastal flood environment in New York, one which is mirrored in many low-lying coastal cities worldwide, the study found that three of the nine highest recorded water levels in the New York Harbor region since 1844 have all occurred since 2010, and eight of the largest 20 such events have occurred since 1990. This is no coincidence, says Stefan Talke, a civil engineer at Portland State University and lead author of the study. The annual probability that a storm, such as a winter nor’easter or a summer hurricane, will overtop the typical Manhattan seawall has increased about 20-fold since 1844, Talke told Mashable, going from less than 1% a year in the 19th century to about 20-25% today. That means that waters can be expected to top the lower Manhattan seawall, which is about 5.7 feet high — once every four to five years, according to a summary from the American Geophysical Union (AGU). That's up from once every 100-400 years back in the late 19th century.

Last year former Mayor Bloomberg proposed a $20B plan to bolster the city's seawalls. The plan calls for an extensive network of barriers, levees, and bulkheads along parts of the city's 520 miles of waterfront. Also proposed are inflatable plugs for tunnel entrances. Mayor De Blasio had not yet indicated if he will follow through.

RELATED: I took the below photo of the eight-lane FDR at the end of my block just after Sandy had passed.

More Woes For Chris Christie

The feds are now investigating Chris Christie for the spending on those incessant "Stronger Than The Storm" commercials which promoted New Jersey's Hurricane Sandy recovery and heavily featured Christie at the same time he was campaigning for reelection.

Al Jazeera On Ali Forney Center

As part of its coverage of the anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, yesterday Al Jazeera published a story about the destruction the Ali Forney Center's Manhattan headquarters, which staffers found devastated by chest-high seawater. But Al Jazeera says that the public's reaction to Ali Forney's plight was one of the few "feel-good stories" of the storm. And that good feeling was due in no small part to you, the readers of JMG.

The response to the Ali Forney Center’s story was like nothing it had seen before. The center receives between $250,000 and $500,000 in donations each November and December, the holiday donation season. But in the first 36 hours after the post on Joe.My.God, the center received more than $100,000 in donations. Soon, the total was $400,000. In all, the center received about $1 million in donations right after Sandy, Siciliano says. It remains unclear how much of the bounce was specifically motivated by Sandy or how much of it was because of the center’s elevated profile. A year later, Siciliano is still unsure why or how the center received that level of attention. “We became hot,” Siciliano says. “It was like we were the hot charity for like two months and that had never happened to me before. I didn’t know what that was like.”

The story goes on to note that Ali Forney Center, which has suffered cutbacks in contributions from the state and has not yet seen any FEMA money from the storm, is still struggling for funds. But I will forever be grateful for the fantastic way you beautiful people stepped up after Hurricane Sandy.

Hurricane Sandy: One Year Ago Today

Source. I'm still amazed that most of the subway system was operating again within weeks.

Bloomberg Unveils $20B Storm Plan

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has unveiled a massive $20B plan to protect the city from again suffering the devastating flooding wrought by Hurricane Sandy. The plan calls for an extensive network of barriers, levees, and bulkheads along parts of the city's 520 miles of waterfront. That $20B figure is just a jumping off point and is approximately equal to the damage estimates from the storm.

In the first phase of building defenses, the report released on Tuesday calls for erecting barriers at Hunts Point in the Bronx to protect the food distribution center, on the East Harlem waterfront along Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, on the East Side where several of the city’s hospitals are, on the Lower East Side, in Chinatown, in the financial district and in Red Hook, Brooklyn. On Staten Island, the plan calls for a system of permanent levees. Along some parts of the coast, stone or concrete bulkheads would be installed, while in other places, dune systems would be built. The city’s power infrastructure also should be better protected, the report said. Currently, 53 percent of power plants are in threatened neighborhoods. By the 2050s, according to the report, 97 percent will be.

Aside from the damage to city and state owned infrastructure, the storm cost private businesses billions more. Among the hardest hit were downtown business and residential towers, most of which had key electrical and mechanical systems in their basements. Some of those buildings went up shortly after the Bloomberg administration invested hundreds of millions to develop parks and other public areas on the shorelines of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.

New York City Has A Baby Bump

Nine months after Hurricane Sandy put the lights out for a week or more in much of the city, Gotham's delivery rooms will see a surge in babies.

“There’s definitely an uptick,” said Dr. Jacques Moritz, director of the division of gynecology at St Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center. “This is just old basic physiology. There’s no Internet and no cable. What else is there to do?’ Dr. Moritz estimated that the number of women expected to deliver at his hospital at the end of July would be 10 to 20 percent higher than it was last year. At NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Amos Grunebaum, chief of obstetrics and gynecology, said, “when we looked at the numbers, it’s 20 to 30 percent busier than usual for the last week of July and going into that first week of August.”

How many will be named Sandy?

New Hurricane Names Released

Via the National Weather Service:

The six lists above are used in rotation and re-cycled every six years, i.e., the 2013 list will be used again in 2019. The only time that there is a change in the list is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity. If that occurs, then at an annual meeting by the WMO committee (called primarily to discuss many other issues) the offending name is stricken from the list and another name is selected to replace it.

Sandy has been retired from the list. Forecasters are predicting a "worse than average" hurricane season, which officially starts on June 1st.

House Approves Sandy Aid Bill

67 Republicans voted against the bill, which was "dramatically" scaled back to only $9.6B.

Christie Slams Boehner Over Sandy Aid

"This is why the American people hate Congress."

Afternoon View

Hurricane Sandy did a number on Fort Lauderdale Beach, which seems about half as wide as when I last saw it. I don't recall that lifeguard stand being so close the water.

Giuliani Backs MTA Chief For Mayor

Two weeks ago we learned that MTA head Joe Lhota, who has earned widespread praise for the response to Hurricane Sandy, was being touted in GOP circles as a candidate to succeed Mayor Bloomberg. Now he's got Giuliani in his corner. Via New York Times:

Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, under whom Mr. Lhota was a deputy mayor and with whom he still speaks frequently, is encouraging him to run and appears poised to take on an active role in any campaign. And Republican county leaders in the city have been contacted by a supporter, Jake Menges, an adviser to Mr. Giuliani, requesting that they hold off on endorsing a candidate. “He said, ‘I’ll have someone that you’ll like,’ ” Phil Ragusa, the Queens Republican chairman, recalled of his conversation with Mr. Menges. “I guess it was probably Joe.” In a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 6 to 1, the specter of a run by Mr. Lhota, who declined to comment on his plans, has galvanized some who quietly expected the 2013 race to end a two-decade stretch without a Democratic mayor. “The M.T.A. happens to be one of the few things that was run well since Sandy,” State Senator Martin J. Golden of Brooklyn said. “I think he’d win.”

In a poll conducted last week, Lhota lost against a hypothetical and unnamed Democrat by a 6-1 margin. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn continues to lead in most polls.

NEW YORK CITY: Hurricane Sandy Victims Remembered With Rainbow Laser

If you were wondering what that was in the New York City sky last night, it was the opening of a three-day laser show in commemoration of the victims of Hurricane Sandy. From the press materials:

Art Production Fund and The Standard present Global Rainbow, After the Storm, a monumental outdoor laser installation by American artist Yvette Mattern on view from 8pm to 2am nightly on November 27th through November 29th from the rooftop of The Standard, High Line and viewable to millions of New Yorkers. Organized in response to Hurricane Sandy, the artist projects seven beams of high power laser light over communities hit hard by the storm, originating on Manhattan's lower west side and spanning across Brooklyn toward the Rockaways. The installation aims to symbolize hope and act as a call to action to support the communities that were devastated by the storm.

NYC Subway Damage Almost $5B

The entire annual operating budget for the MTA is $7B.