Mark Boughton and the Notorious B.I.G.

While many people and elected officials have simply followed the Weather Channel's decision to call the snowstorm hitting the Northeast "Nemo," the mayor of one city in Connecticut has decided to come up with his own name for the blizzard and it's a reference to the late, great rapper Notorious B.I.G. In a series of tweets sent today, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton has used the #SnowtoriousBIGII hashtag to refer to the storm.

"Wind is definitely picking up," Mr. Boughton wrote this afternoon. "This is becoming an old school storm. #OG #snotoriousBIGII"

Politicker asked Mr. Boughton whether "Snowtorious B.I.G." was the official name for the storm within the City of Danbury.

"Yes. Of course," he replied.

Mr. Boughton, who was first elected in 2001, also pointed out he previously used the reference to the late, great rapper Biggie Smalls A.K.A. Notorious B.I.G. to refer to another snowstorm two winters ago.

"This the 2nd storm to carry the hashtag. Hence the II at the end," wrote the mayor.

During the first "Snowtorious B.I.G.," Mr. Boughton, who has been on Twitter since 2008, drew national attention for the way he communicated with constituents on the social media site during the storm. He dispatched a plow to a snow-covered street after a tweet alerted him to the situation there.

Since he named the storm after Mr. Smalls, we also asked the mayor if he's a rap fan.

" I love all kinds of music including Biggie Smalls," wrote Mr. Boughton.

If you don't know, now you know.

Governor Andrew Cuomo

At his Midtown office this afternoon, Governor Andrew Cuomo briefed reporters about the severe winter weather currently bearing down on the New York City area. Though the governor announced he declared a state of emergency "effective this afternoon" to give the state and local governments "more flexibility in dealing with this situation," he said the storm is not expected to cause any major damage along the lines of what the region experienced during Hurricane Sandy.

"Well you've heard of Finding Nemo, it seems like Nemo has found us," Governor Cuomo began, riffing off the Weather Channel's name for the storm. "As everyone knows, we're expecting a severe winter storm, but nothing more than a severe winter storm. We've been preparing for it for a number of days now."

Governor Cuomo said the storm's impact will be felt in the New York City area and Long Island, where he said it will be "even worse" than in the five boroughs. He also forecast heavy snows will hit the "eastern part of the state up north."

In spite of the snowstorm, the governor said the "MTA expects to remain operational." Airports, however, will be closed this evening and Governor Cuomo said 2,300 flights have been cancelled. He also said "approximately 3,000 people" have lost power and that state officials will be "monitoring" the power outage situation.

"In sum, this is a serious, severe storm, a winter storm, but we just went through some really terrible storms with Hurricane Sandy. We are not anticipating anything like that," said the governor. "That's the good news. So, severe winter storm, a lot of shoveling, stay indoors if you can get home. But we've been through worse than what we're talking about, so it's all relative at the end of the day."

After his closing remarks, Governor Cuomo asked the assembled reporters if they had any questions. There were none.

"Great, that was a thorough and exhaustive briefing," he quipped.

Mayor Bloomberg (Photo: Getty)

WASHINGTON -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg is in Washington D.C. today meeting with lawmakers and other officials about his request for billions of dollars in federal aid to help the city recover from the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy last month in New York. Though many City residents affected by Sandy have had some criticism about FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security's response to the storm, at a press conference in the Capitol Building this afternoon, Mr. Bloomberg said he didn't have a single issue with the federal followup to the hurricane. 

Mr. Bloomberg said his morning schedule in Washington included meetings with key lawmakers and "a long talk and lunch" with Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, who is President Barack Obama's point person on the longterm rebuilding effort after the storm. The mayor gave his assessmentof the federal response to Sandy while discussing his meeting with Mr. Donovan.

"I did thank him for all the help we've received from Washington already including from the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency," said Mr. Bloomberg.  "I will say that the support of both of those agencies was exemplary. And people kept asking me, 'Is there anything we could improve on?' And I had to say honestly, no, that I don't know one complaint. These people--both agencies have worked as hard as anybody could and as effectively as anybody could ask for."

Overall, Mayor Bloomberg, who was accompanied by Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, said the reception they received during their push for storm aid was "very good." Though he and the senators acknowledged the tight federal budget, he expressed confidence the City will get the aid he is seeking.

"There's every reason to believe that Congress will provide us with the assistance we need given New York City's importance to the health of the entire nation," the mayor said. "Consider this, we're just 2.6 percent of the nation's population, but we do generate 4.3 percent of America's gross national product."

Destroyed homes in Sea Gate after Hurricane Sandy. (Photo: Hunter Walker)

Two days after Hurricane Sandy hit New York, Barbara Garofalo, a lifelong Sea Gate resident, stood in front of the community’s chapel, which had been turned into a makeshift headquarters for emergency personnel.

She watched bulldozers work their way through the ruins of the neighborhood’s private beach club, surveying the piles of rubble and twisted metal and the uprooted cabanas that littered the streets after the storm sent waves crashing through the neighborhood’s beachfront homes, ripping several off their foundations. Eyeing the damage, Ms. Garofalo couldn’t help but wonder whether some of the houses could have been saved if a planned government project to reinforce the community’s beaches had started sooner.

“They have the money in process, but they haven’t started it yet,” said Ms. Garofalo. “Maybe we would have had water damage, but maybe would have—could have saved the homes. Every home on the beach is gone. It breaks my heart.” 

For at least two decades, there has been an effort to reinforce Sea Gate’s beach with a multimillion-dollar array of what is known in the parlance of coastal engineers as “heavy armoring”: walls, jetties and rock barriers known as “t-groins” built to stop and absorb energy from waves before they batter the shore.

In April, after a long series of delays due to bureaucratic and political factors, more than $26 million in federal, city and state funds was finally secured to install a storm protection system in Sea Gate. Construction was slated to begin late this year, but it clearly wasn’t fast enough to fight the hurricane.

Even if the storm protection planned for Sea Gate had been in place before the waves crashed through the neighborhood last month, it probably wouldn’t have been sufficient to withstand a storm of Sandy’s magnitude. But with growing acknowledgment that climate change is leading to fiercer weather patterns, the decades-long saga to shore up Sea Gate is a dramatic illustration of how potentially lifesaving civil engineering measures are being outpaced by the forces of nature.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler was elected in 1992 to represent a seat that includes parts of Manhattan as well as Sea Gate and Coney Island on the southwestern tip of Brooklyn. Less than two weeks after he arrived in Washington for Congress’s freshman orientation, Sea Gate was hit hard by a nor’easter, and Mr. Nadler received a call from an aide who said, “Congressman, I think you better get back, your district is being washed to sea.”

Since then, Mr. Nadler has been heavily involved in the push to install t-groins and other storm armoring in the area. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, he hopes construction will begin “without further delay” on the storm protection barriers for Sea Gate.

“Shorefront protection must be our priority, now more than ever, on New York’s coastline. We don’t know when the next major storm will arrive, but we do know that it will come. T-groins are a common-sense measure for Coney Island and Sea Gate—one that we have already fully funded—and we need to construct them without further delay,” he said. “I hope the U.S. Army Corps will act with urgency to correct the mistake that left the Sea Gate community without beachfront protection.”

Developed as a private beach community in the late 19th century, Sea Gate sits on the western tip of Coney Island behind gates patrolled by the community’s private police force. Residents divide the world into two parts, “in the gate” and “out of the gate.” Inside, there are quiet streets and beachfront homes with ornate balconies and living rooms that open onto the beach. Outside, the boardwalk and amusement park rides became surrounded by housing projects as Coney Island slipped into decline in the latter half of the last century.

The push to protect both areas from storms began as far back as 1969, when the government became aware of the beach erosion that was eating away at the Coney Island shoreline.

Three years later, the Army Corps of Engineers unveiled a $27.5 million plan to secure the area, a project that included a 15-foot seawall that would have extended from Manhattan Beach to Sea Gate, causing an uproar among locals who did not want their cherished beach views obstructed.

Local leadership instead backed a plan to extend the beach 250 feet beyond its original boundaries. This created another obstacle to the storm protection plan; at the time, federal guidelines mandated that any project to extend beaches must be funded locally rather than with federal money.

Sea Gate residents turned to the feds. In 1986, Congress authorized extending the Coney Island beaches under something called the Water Resources Development Act, with the project’s approval hinging on the increased recreational use that wider beaches would afford.

But that same year, in an instance of could-not-be-worse timing, President Ronald Reagan began an effort to cut the Army Corps of Engineers’ budgets and increase the amount of local funds used on projects relative to federal monies. This push deprioritized projects approved for their recreational benefits, and the Coney Island plan was scrapped.

So it was back to square one for Brooklyn’s oceanfront dwellers; the Army Corps of Engineers came up with another shore-protection plan, this one based on protecting the government’s investments in Coney Island’s many units of public housing.

Three years later, with the support of Mr. Nadler and other local leaders, construction on the Coney Island beach replenishment and storm protection project finally began. However, once the project was complete, it proved to have an entirely unexpected negative side effect: even more beach erosion for Sea Gate.

The changed contours of the shoreline shifted the surrounding waters, depleting sand from one of the beaches in Sea Gate and actually leaving the area even more vulnerable to storms.

Because of this, in 1996, the Army Corps of Engineers took interim steps to, quite literally, shore up the area and began researching a long-term solution. A plan to install t-groins was finally devised between 1998 and 2000, but, due to tight federal and local budgets, finding funding took more than a decade.

By 2010, Congressman Nadler had secured $18.9 million in federal funds for heavy storm armoring in Sea Gate. In April of this year, the city and state allocated another $7.3 million for the project. As all of the money fell into place, the Army Corps of Engineers began seeking contractors for the project in the hope that they would be able to begin construction late this year. Then Hurricane Sandy arrived, ahead of the project’s schedule.

After the storm, the project’s fate remains unclear. The Observer spent several days calling the Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the project, but as of this writing, they have not responded to our requests for comment on this story.

Though the hurricane has led to federal emergency designations and increased awareness of the neighborhood’s plight, which might help expedite construction, it has also brought raised awareness that the New York area is in for increasingly powerful storms, for which the planned t-groins are no match.

As she stood among the wreckage, Ms. Garofalo wondered which would come first: adequate protections for Sea Gate or another Sandy.

“The homeowners can’t do it their own anymore,” she said. “The next time we get a bad storm, or even just high tide, the water is coming right over again. We have nothing to protect us.”

Cory Booker hanging out with his hurricane houseguests. (Photo: Alice Bell/Twitter)

Newark Mayor Cory Booker opened his home yesterday to over a dozen of his neighbors who were left without power by Hurricane Sandy. Alice Bell, who took refuge after the storm at the mayor's house, talked to Politicker this morning and described the slumber party-like scene inside Mr. Booker's home and what it meant to the people who stayed there.

"It meant--I can't even explain," she said, her voice cracking with emotion. "I mean, we were--I'm still overwhelmed that he would reach out to us like that, you know, that we meant that much that he actually invited the whole block."

Ms. Bell said some residents of the neighborhood, Upper Clinton Hill, are without power, heat and water while others, like Mr. Booker, who live on different parts of the power grid are not. She has spoken to the utility company and they said they expect services to be restored tomorrow.

"His house is directly in back of mine," Ms. Bell explained. "That street, Hawthorne Avenue, that whole street has lights. We don't."

Because of the situation, Mr. Booker invited residents of one of the affected blocks, Homestead Park, into his home. He reached out to them on Twitter.

"His house is like three stories, so he opened up the whole floor to us," Ms. Bell said. "We had a kitchen, bathroom. We had the whole first floor."

Ms. Bell and others also went around the neighborhood making sure people knew they were welcome at the mayor's home.

"I went around knocking doors and said the mayor offered ... Everybody, they were shocked, like, 'Really, he said I could come?' So, we felt kind of special."

Because of the mayor's invite, Ms. Bell said people have been coming in and out of his house "constantly."

"I haven't been over there this morning, but yesterday, it was a steady flow of people there in and out, people just stopping by to charge phones and, you know, get something to eat, warm up a little bit," said Ms. Bell. "They've been back and forth constantly."

Mr. Booker has also stopped by to bring supplies.

"He brought us DVDs, he's bringing in food ... he came by brought us popcorn and then brought us trick-or-treat candy. He's been back and forth checking on us and calling ... You know, 'There's beds, get in the beds, bring your covers.' Everybody wanted to camp out that's what we were doing and, you know, we slept over last night," Ms. Bell said.

Along with popcorn, the menu at Mr. Booker's house consisted of chicken, fish, macaroni and cheese, potato salad, corn bread and candied yams from King's Family Restaurant. According to Ms. Bell, "we ate good." The DVD selection focused on movies for the mayor's younger house guests.

"There were kids, so everything was age appropriate. We watched Spiderman, we watched Kung Fu Panda, Happy Feet," Ms. Bell said. "And he brought--the kids had Play-Doh, and coloring books and stuff--supplies. We kept each other entertained, trying to keep each other's spirits up."

Though Ms. Bell said Mr. Booker allowed his guests to sleep at his house, she's not sure the mayor got any rest himself.

"He's still out running about, doing his thing, picking up prescriptions for medication for people, delivering Pampers, and he's in and out constantly," she said. "He came in for maybe--I don't know if he slept or not. He was in and out."

We reached out to Mr. Booker to ask why he decided to open his home and if he managed to get any rest. As of this writing, we haven't received a response.

For her part, Ms. Bell said she wasn't surprised by the mayor's generosity. Since being elected in 2006, Mr. Booker has earned a reputation as a "supermayor" for taking to Twitter to personally help Newark residents with their problems and an incident last April where he rushed into a burning building to save a woman from a fire.

"I'm not too surprised, you know, he's--I wouldn't expect anything less from him,  you know, that's just him," Ms. Bell said. "I wasn't surprised. The same way when people ask me about how surprised I was that he ran into the building behind that lady. I wasn't surprised."

Ms. Bell left Mr. Booker's house this morning to check on her pets, but she said she and others plan on returning again today.

"In fact, I'm getting ready to go back over there to take a shower right now," said Ms. Bell.

Domenic Recchia Jr. (Photo: NYC Council)

In spite of the impact of Hurricane Sandy still being felt around the city, the New York City Marathon is still scheduled to proceed as planned on Sunday. However, you can now add Councilman Domenic Recchia to the growing list of critics who disagree with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's contention the race won't disrupt emergency workers from their vital post-storm duties. In a statement released a few minutes ago, Mr. Recchia, who represents Coney Island, Gravesend, Bensonhurst and Brighton Beach, which were all hit hard by the storm, called continuing with the marathon "just wrong."

"To host the New York City Marathon in the middle of what is complete devastation and a crisis in parts of this City is just wrong. There are people in Coney Island, Sea Gate, and Brighton Beach who are without food, water, and electricity. This crisis is expected to continue through the weekend and into next week," Mr. Recchia said.

Mr. Recchia asked anyone considering participating in the race to instead focus on helping with the relief effort in his district.

"I am calling on all who were planning on running and volunteering in the marathon to direct their energies to helping us pass out food and water in my district, particularly to seniors who are currently trapped in their homes on high-level floors," he said.

Mayor Bloomberg has argued the marathon generates hundreds of millions in revenue for the city. In a press conference this afternoon, he said the race won't "redirect any focus" of the city's first responders.

"The waves they were hitting my boarded up veranda and the water was coming up from the front of the house and, on the third shot, I went down, I shut the electricity and I just went by my sister's on Laurel Avenue," Mr. Deangelis told Politicker today.

Though he abandoned his home, Mr. Deangelis left a webcam filming as the waters overtook his house. He and his family watched live as their house was destroyed.

"You know, 31 years in the house, and 31 years in this country and all of it is gone," he explained as he stood in front of the home, which had a red sticker on the door declaring it "unsafe" to enter and in danger of collapse.

Sea Gate was one of the neighborhoods hardest hit by the storm. Mr. Deangelis said he never experienced weather that made him question whether to remain in the community until now.

"We had five storms. The last four storms; we had the storm in '86, Gloria, '91 was Hugo, then we had another one, I forgot it's name and we had Irene last. But none of them give me any bad thoughts about it, this one, it did."

Still, Mr. Deangelis said he wants to return to his home in Sea Gate.

"I hope so. Me personally, I put a lot of work into this house," said Mr. Deangelis. "It's a lot of money involved, plus I'm Italian, a lot of good construction, good material. And then, my wife also, it was a lot of rememberings, a lot of--our whole fortune is there and it's gone. We got stuff in there that we can't get it. We can't get to it and my wife is just so upset. We don't know what to do."

Along with the destruction of their house, Mr. Deangelis' daughter said they were worried about conditions in the neighborhood as the family remained in her aunt's home.

"There's dead cats everywhere," she said. "Sea Gate had a lot of cats."

We didn't see any feline corpses when we walked through the community this afternoon, but the situation was certainly grim. Aside from the destroyed homes, the neighborhood was without power and filled with debris, damaged cars that had been moved by the waters and downed trees. At the entrance to Sea Gate, cabanas from the neighborhood's private beach club were tossed around throughout the area. Amid the debris we also encountered many saddened residents.

Howie and Felicia Mendelsohn said they lived three blocks away from the beach, but their basement, garage and cars were still destroyed. Ms. Mendelsohn said many Sea Gate denizens were considering leaving the community to avoid future storms.

"Now people are talking about moving out. How do you rebuild, and then, when this happens again?" her voice trailed off. "This is heartbreaking. I'm crying all through this."

Barbara Garofalo, a lifelong Sea Gate resident, was standing in front of the community's chapel, which police officers were using as a temporary headquarters. She said she lost the "bottom level" of her home.

"We're all in cleanup mode trying to--we cry and just, thankfully were all here," said Ms. Garofalo. "We all took people in in our homes and we're working it like that. ... We're neighbors. We're a tight-knit community. Family, that's what we are."

Though Ms. Garofalo was optimistic the people of Sea Gate would help each other recover, she said she would like the government to do more to protect the community from another disaster.

"We're going to survive, we're going to build up again and hope, you know, that the federal government helps us with the ... sea walls we need," she said. "The homeowners at this point can't do it their own anymore. We need federal government to help us put up a sea wall, or else we get a bad storm again, or not even, we get high tides, it's coming right over again. We have nothing to protect us."

Ms. Garofalo explained "individual homes" in the neighborhood have their own walls. In 2008, the Army Corps of Engineers received $9 million in funding to build "t-groins," rock jetties that protect the beach. However, Ms. Garofalo said the jetties have yet to be built.

"They have the money in process, but they haven't started it yet," said Ms. Garofalo. "It would have helped us somewhat is my personal opinion. Maybe we would have had water damage, but maybe would have--could have saved the homes. Every home on the beach is gone. It breaks my heart."

Though many of the houses in Sea Gate were destroyed, there was one bit of good news among the destruction in the community. After touring the devastation, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn told us police informed her there were "no fatalities in Sea Gate."

Click our slideshow to see pictures of the situation in Sea Gate.

Christine Quinn (Photo: Getty)

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, there have been mounting reports and rumors of people taking advantage of the chaos and power outages created by the storm to loot abandoned buildings. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn wants these criminals to face exceptionally harsh punishment. Politicker saw Ms. Quinn in Coney Island today as she spoke to reporters after surveying the damage. Ms. Quinn said people need to "do the right thing" and should face very tough consequences if they don't.

"They really shouldn't prey on their neighbors in these worst of times and anyone who is caught looting during this storm should have the book thrown at them in a way that is extreme," Ms. Quinn said.

Ms. Quinn went on to detail the specific penalties she thinks looters should suffer.

"I would quite frankly say, you know, don't even give them bail. Make them sit inside until the storm is totally gone and the power is over. That'll teach you a lesson the next time the power goes out, because this is serious."

At the New York Aquarium, which is located under the boardwalk, staff said they were too busy dealing with the after-effects of the hurricane to speak with us. Alongside one of the aquarium buildings, we noticed water being drained into the street.

The parking lot of the aquarium was covered in sand that spread through the area with the floodwaters. In the amusement park we witnessed several rides damaged by sand and winds.

Above, on the boardwalk, local business people were cleaning up their shops, restaurants and bars. Lola Star, who owns a souvenir boutique on the boardwalk and another shop below on Surf Avenue said she hadn't seen anything like this storm in her 12 years on the island.

"It's total insanity. I don't even know how this storm caused such crazy destruction," Ms. Star said.

Apart from damage to her large, pink sign, Ms. Star said her store on the boardwalk mostly survived the storm. However, she said the problems on Surf Avenue were far worse.

"My store on the boardwalk is fine, thank god, but my store on Surf Avenue is just totaled. It's demolished," said Ms. Star. "The structure itself is O.K.--it looks O.K. But everything inside the store must have been churned with this whirlwind, powerful whirlwind of water that just--everything, it destroyed everything. Everything is soaking wet full of, like, disgusting sewer water."

Ms. Star said she was worried about whether her insurance would pay for the destruction caused by the hurricane.

"It's such a hassle when you're down here and you're trying to get insurance. No one wants to insure, so you kind of agree to all these things," Ms. Star explained. "So, I kind of have this bad feeling that I may not have flood insurance for that reason. Like, who wants to insure you when you're on the water like this?"

Barry Flynn, a manager at the ice cream shop Coney Island Cones, was biking along the boardwalk after checking out the store. He pointed toward the beach and said sand dunes that had been created to prevent flooding were completely wiped out by Sandy.

"They put up sand to stop the waves, but it didn't stop them," he said.

Mr. Flynn said his store weathered the storm well. He lives further inland and his car was destroyed. However, he said many others on Coney Island had it far worse than him including residents who had their homes and possessions destroyed, but lack the resources to find temporary housing or rebuild.

"Some people have no place to go. Coney Island is inundated with poor people, that's the really hard thing," said Mr. Flynn.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn came to Coney Island after surveying the intense damage in nearby Sea Gate with Councilman Domenic Recchia and Assemblyman Alec Brook Krasny. She told us the city is making extensive efforts to get food and water to the residents of Coney Island. She also urged anyone in the area who needs help to get to one of the evacuation centers, which are still open.

"There is a large effort being coordinated out of the Office of Emergency Management to get more food--first to the shelters that were out there, because there's more people at the shelters than they thought there'd be. Two, to get water to neighborhoods and food to neighborhoods where people were in Zone A and may have stayed," Ms. Quinn said. "People still should know the shelters are open and that they can and should go there. And that's going to be the easiest way to get food and water, because that's the first point we're going to take it to, and then we're obviously trying to get water, and water trucks and food to other spots as well."

For her part, Ms. Star sounded optimistic that life on Coney Island will return to normal.

"I'm just so thankful my store is here. I'm thankful my sign is here. I'm just thankful. Coney Island has a lot of spunk, and a lot of good energy and we'll rebuild."

Click the slideshow to see photos of the damage in Coney Island.

Mayor Bloomberg tours some of the storm damage from Hurricane Sandy. (Photo: Getty)

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Governor Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly hinted at climate change's culpability for the frequency and severity of the weather striking New York State in recent years. However, Mr. Cuomo been getting more direct in the claim, stating earlier today, “I think part of learning from this is the recognition that climate change is reality." And, asked about the topic at his own press conference following Mr. Cuomo's, Mayor Michael Bloomberg also appeared to cautiously assign blame on global warming while urging proactive steps to address the issue.

"Look, there have been very strange weather patterns, very severe storms where they normally have not occurred. That much is recorded, you can look at the film, okay?" Mr. Bloomberg began. "Whether or not it is part of a long-term climate change or just a random collection of events, only time will tell. The argument that we're damaging our planet is simply, 'Let's assume that we decide that we're not damaging our planet and find out later on that we were, it literally could be too late!' I think if you go and you talk to farmers who have lost all their crops because there have been droughts, or places where you've had tornadoes or hurricanes or the families of those who have lost here, they would say, 'Hey, there's something going on.'"

The mayor, who has spoken out against global warming in the past, pivoted to a broader point about the state of the Earth's climate.

"What is clear is that the ice cap has melted, and that's very bad because then the heat of the sun gets absorbed in the water, which raises the water temperature, which hurts the ecosystem of the reefs," he argued. "It's not the sort of thing that you can ever say for sure, but the consequences of making a mistake in one direction are pretty severe. I think what we have to do is learn from this and protect our infrastructure to the extent possible. If you live near the water, you're always going to be subject to storms coming in and water coming in. If you live in the mountains, you're always going to be subject to wild weather, ice, snow, avalanches and things like that. So we have to do a better job of protecting us; we've done a good job here and there's always more to do, and that's true of the private sector as well as the public sector."