Post-Hurricane Sandy: Looking More Like Post-Hurricane Katrina

It’s Katrina all over Fire Island.

Rotting mattresses and furniture along with ruined TVs and other home furnishing in front of homes and along side roads for months as politicians such as Tim Bishop and Peter King mug for the cameras and say $50 billion.

I am sad to say this could easily be Southampton Village, or Hampton Bays, had Hurricane Sandy come ashore just 50 miles east of where it landed in New Jersey.

As NJ Governor Chris Christie has been all over cleaning up his Jersey Shore, what’s going on in New York? Legal fights over “federal” contracts to clean up the massive amount of destructive debris have been going on for months.

Now, with the spring almost at hand, nothing has been done. For the Katrina folks, their flight, that of minorities devastated by a storm while a Republican administration (George Bush) was inept, insensitive and incompetent prompted action.

What is the reason for the non-actions on Hurricane Sandy? The federal government is not to fix all problems, but in times of national disasters, it does represent the whole nation's conscience doing what is right.

I don’t quite understand why the U.S. military didn’t just sent in some naval barges and troops and clean out the debris after week two. They have the equipment, expertise, and know how.

Instead, I feel politics is being played. Lucrative contracts are being issued with nothing being done except and I am speculating here, commissions and administrative fees chipping away at $50 billion. I like Tim Bishop but I can’t help but feel if his family had a home on Fire Island, something, and anything would have already been done to handle this disgrace. Now some of the towns of Fire Island are thinking about making the residents in charge of getting the debris off the island by the end of March or FINE them.

Meanwhile, the “feds” have had months to spend money on lawyers and fees and do nothing. This stinks like the rotting sofas and mattresses. Fire Island National Sea Coast is a national disgrace. Some federal administrators need to be fined personally. But as we know that will never happen.