A spokesman for the New York City Office of Emergency Management emailed reporters today to let the press know that the city had a preliminary bill for the damage that Hurricane Irene did last month.
And that price tag is somewhere in the neighborhood of $55 million. Read More
No sooner had The Politicker published a letter from Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer urging President Obama to declare a state of emergency in New York than the following was sent from the White House press office:
The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of New York and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from Hurricane Irene beginning on August 25, 2011, and continuing. Read More
President Barack Obama warned Americans today that “an extremely dangerous and costly” storm was headed up the eastern seaboard and that residents of affected areas should plan accordingly. Read More
Remember how during the Great Blizzard of 2010, members of the New York City Council complained that they were kept in the dark about storm preparations?
Well, with Hurricane Irene bearing down on New York City, Bloomberg administration officials, including deputy mayor Cas Halloway–who replaced deputy mayor Stephen Goldsmith after he bungled the snowstorm response–and Office of Emergency Management head Joseph Bruno invited all of the city’s elected officials to an 11 a.m. meeting in the governor’s room at City Hall. The purpose of the meeting was to brief the elected officials on how the city was preparing for the storm, which neighborhoods would be affected and how, and to go over which resources communities could expect in the likelihood of a major storm coming.
The only problem? Only a handful of City Council members showed up. Read More
Hurricane Irene is still at sea, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo has already declared a state of emergency for New York State.
“In this emergency I am activating all levels of state government to prepare for any situation that may be caused by Hurricane Irene,” Governor Cuomo said. “We are communicating with our federal and local partners to track the storm and to plan a coordinated response, and we will deploy resources as needed to the areas expected to be hit the hardest. I urge New Yorkers to personally prepare for hurricane conditions and to cooperate with emergency officials if needed.”
Neighboring New Jersey has already declared a state of emergency, which allows the use of state resources to assist local governments more effectively and allows states to activate the national “Emergency Management Assistance Compact” to bring in resources from out of the state.
With the storm approaching, Gov. Cuomo has called on a full state mobilization, even as he visits the state fair and searches for sausage sandwiches.
What exactly a “full mobilization” means is detailed agency by agency below: Read More
