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| Sheila and Dominic Traina hug in front of their home which was demolished during Superstorm Sandy in Staten Island, N.Y., Friday, Nov. 2, 2012. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has come under fire for pressing ahead with the New York City Marathon. Some New Yorkers say holding the 26.2-mile race would be insensitive and divert police and other important resources when many are still suffering from Superstorm Sandy. The course runs from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on hard-hit Staten Island to Central Park, sending runners through all five boroughs. The course will not be changed, since there was little damage along the route. |
NEW YORK (AP) -- Gazing at her bungalow, swept from its foundation and tossed across the street, Janice Clarkin wondered if help would ever come to this battered island off the coast of Manhattan.
"Do
you see anybody here?" she asked, resignation etched on her face. "On
the news, the mayor's congratulating the governor and the governor's
congratulating the mayor. On what? People died."
Staten
Island was devastated beyond recognition by Superstorm Sandy and
suffered the highest death toll of all of New York City's boroughs,
including two young brothers who were swept from their mother's arms by
the swirling sea and drowned. Yet days after the waters receded,
residents feel ignored and forgotten.
That
sense of isolation is deeply rooted on Staten Island, a tight-knit
community that has long felt cut off from the bright lights of Manhattan
- the city from which the island once tried to secede.
"It's
always been that way. We're a forgotten little island," said Catherine
Friscia, who stood with tear-filled eyes across the street from the
Atlantic Ocean in front of homes filled with water and where the air
smelled like garbage and rotting fish.
"Nobody pays attention to any of us over here. Nobody."
In
the shadow of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, dazed survivors roamed
Staten Island's sand-covered streets this week amid ruined bungalows
sagging under the weight of water that rose to the rooftops. Their
contents lay flung in the street: Mud-soaked couches, stuffed animals
and mattresses formed towering piles of wreckage. Boats were tossed like
toys into roadways.
Aside from a few fire
trucks scattered along the shore, there were no emergency or relief
workers in sight. Residents washed their muddy hands with bottled water
and handed out sandwiches to neighbors as they sifted through the soggy
wreckage of their homes, searching for anything that could be salvaged.
Spray-painted on the plywood that covered the first floor of one flooded home were the words: "FEMA CALL ME."
Sticking
together in the aftermath of the storm has kept Staten Islanders who
lost everything from completely falling apart. Self-reliance is in their
blood just as the island's very geography lends itself to a feeling of
isolation from the mainland: the only way to get on or off is by car,
bus or ferry.
After the storm, residents who
had evacuated had to wait until Wednesday to return, when the
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge finally reopened to the public.
Most
of the deaths were clustered in beachfront neighborhoods exposed to the
Atlantic Ocean along the island's southeastern shore, an area of
cinderblock bungalows and condominiums. Many of these homes were built
decades ago - originally as summer cottages - and were not constructed
to withstand the power of a major storm.
Diane
Fieros wept as she recalled how she and her family survived by huddling
on the third floor of their home across the street from the ocean,
watching as the waves slammed into the house and the water rose higher
and higher, shooting through cracks in the floor. A few blocks away,
several people drowned.
"The deck was moving, the house was moving," she said. "We thought we were going to die. We prayed. We all prayed."
Fieros
rode out the storm with her two sons, her parents and other extended
family members. She pointed to a black line on the house that marked
where the water rose: at least 12 feet above the ground.
"I told them, `We die, we die together,'" she said, her voice cracking. "You saw the waves coming. Oh my God."
The
storm has reopened old frictions among local officials who maintain
Staten Island's infrastructure remains inadequate and that it has little
sway on City Council compared to the other, bigger boroughs. In 1997,
Staten Islanders voted in favor of seceding from New York City and
incorporating on its own, buoyed by a belief that the borough pays more
in taxes than it receives in return and that it's typically put last on
the list for city services.
Staten Island
Borough President James Molinaro suggested this week that people should
not donate money to the American Red Cross because that relief agency
had neglected his borough.
"We have hundreds
of people in shelters throughout Staten Island," he said. "Many of them,
when the shelters close, have nowhere to go because their homes are
destroyed. These are not homeless people. They're homeless now."
The
controversy surrounding this weekend's New York City Marathon, which
was cancelled Friday by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, had special resonance
among Staten Islanders. The lucrative race begins on the
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and would have brought nearly 50,000 runners
to an area not far from the Staten Island neighborhoods where people
died.
Resident George Rosado, 52, who spent
two days scrubbing a thick layer of sludge from his tiled floors and was
preparing to demolish the water-logged walls of his home, found the
idea repulsive. Except for a lone hospital van offering bottled water
and power bars, Rosado had seen no federal, state or local agencies in
his neighborhood, which sits about a block from the ocean.
"Nothing,
nothing," he said, choking back tears. "We're hit hard. Homes are
washed away. People are dying. Look around. You hear anything? It's
quiet."
The city's tourism officials have long
complained that Staten Island is the one borough that nobody wants to
visit. But that has never bothered the half-million people who reside in
this community, which is more suburban than urban and has a high
concentration of police officers and firefighters.
It's
a place families are drawn to by the allure of having their own
backyard and raising their children in a small-town atmosphere.
"We
were all around family, you know what I'm saying?" said 68-year-old
Joseph Miley, Clarkin's cousin. "A person went away and there was always
somebody here to watch their house, watch their animals."
In fact, so many relatives lived on the same street that they jokingly referred to it as "The Compound."
That's all been wiped out now. The family's mud-spattered possessions lie dumped on the street; their homes will be bulldozed.
Billy
Hague, 30, described paddling around the neighborhood looking for his
missing 85-year-old uncle, James Rossi, who refused to evacuate before
the storm.
"I kayaked back to the house and
broke the windows and got in the house trying to find him," he said. "I
found the dog, but I didn't find him until the next day until the waters
subsided."
Rossi was among the 19 Staten Islanders claimed by the storm. His dog also drowned.
Hague,
Clarkin and other now-homeless family members are bunking with
relatives who live on higher ground, just beyond the reach of the
devastating ocean waves. They have no idea where they will live. They do
not have the money to rebuild their homes.
But
they have each other. Amid the debris and the broken glass and the
uprooted trees, an American flag blew in the breeze. Clarkin waved a
dismissive hand at the scene of destruction. She considers herself one
of the lucky ones.
"People perished," she said. "This is stuff. That's all."
