Kristen Ott
Composition 101: rough
draft
Professor Thomas
7 December 2012
Hurricane
Sandy: The Aftermath
In early October a massive tropical cyclone stormed
through the Caribbean and up the Eastern coast of the United States. The storm
was labeled hurricane Sandy, and would cause mass panic within the major cities
of North Eastern coast. Hurricane Sandy started in the Caribbean on October 19 and
quickly developed from a small tropical depression to a tropical storm in just
six hours. On October 24th Sandy hit its maximum speeds of 74 mile
per hour and was labeled a hurricane. That same day Sandy struck Jamaica,
moving through open water gaining strength. Within the next three days the
storm would also strike Cuba and most of the islands within the Bahamas. On
October 29th Sandy hit Atlantic City, New Jersey, with winds of 80
miles per hour.
Within minutes the streets of New Jersey were flooded,
trees and power lines had fallen, and houses were ripped apart. Jillian Berman
states in the Huffington Post, that hurricane Sandy will amount to between 30
to 50 billion dollars in economic losses. Community cooperation in the
aftermath of Hurricane Sandy is a good example of how residents come together even
when first aid and government are slow to react. Hurricane Sandy’s recovery was
the focus in the media coverage for almost a month then slowly died out without
real relief for the families.
As you can imagine the word hurricane is scary as is.
Growing up in New Jersey my whole life made it absolutely terrifying to me. Not
only was hurricane sandy heading straight for my home, it was heading towards
my family. As I watched all the horrible sights on TV I worried for my family
and the condition our home was in. My family was amongst the lucky ones that
experienced barely any damage caused by the storm. A few weeks after the storm
I went home to see my family. Seeing playgrounds and beaches that I grew up at
destroyed and demolished made all the horrifying stories surreal. It opened my
eyes to all the devastation and destruction the storm had caused, as well as
the traumatic experiences the residents went through.
When thinking of all the residents who lost their homes,
valuables, and even their lives, it is easy to imagine what dramatic
experiences they went through. With flooding ruining houses, people without
power, and no way of transportation the residents of New Jersey are left
helpless. Not only has hurricane Sandy affected the lives of those across the country;
it has also affected the housing market. With whole neighborhoods demolished in
New Jersey residents could see a decline in their real estate in the future.
Water damaged soil, houses, and erosion are just a few of the issue at hand. “Hurricane Sandy’s immediate impact on real estate in the
hardest hit Northeastern neighborhoods is already painfully evident.” (Brennan)
Not only has the storm affected the market for housing in New Jersey, but it
has also affected all of the markets within the United States.
With standing water and
rubble littering the streets of New Jersey, thousands of volunteers jump into
action to help rebuild the cities. In New York, five thousand temporary workers
were hired to help rebuild and clean up the damage from the massive storm. The
New York Times reports, “About $27 million in federal Labor Department money
will finance the cleanup and rebuilding positions in New York City and eight
nearby counties, paying about $15 per hour and generally lasting about six
months, state and federal officials said.” FEMA (Federal Emergency Management
Agency) is also offering seven hundred temporary jobs to help in the relieve
efforts.
With government agencies
such as FEMA working to help relieve the areas struck by hurricane Sandy, it
shows how well the United States government responded to the disaster. With
government temporary government workers being paid to clean up damages and rebuild,
as well as those who are helping the community; the government is still working
to improve conditions. With so much damage to cities the price of rebuilding is
only going up. According to the New York Times it is estimated that over
thirty-two billion will be needed to repair the housing and
infrastructures. Another ten billion
dollars will be used to help further protect the transit systems, the sewage
treatments facilities, as well as the power networks.
The United States
government was struck with questions after being accused of taking too long to
react to the damages in the Eastern cities. With people stranded in flooded
homes, and left without food, water, and electricity; they soon turned and
began to blame the U.S. government agencies such as FEMA and Red Cross. While
the public was being supplied with public housing, bathrooms, food, and many
other resources people still complained about things that the government was
providing for them. With some parts of the cities unreachable due to flooding
and damaged roads, the government did as much as they could at the time. With
over seventy-five hundred volunteers from the FEMA organization, they launched
their efforts to help rebuild and clean up the damages caused by Sandy.
With the aftermath of the
storm, the media began to relay the disturbing visuals to the American people.
With immediate media assistance, radio shows, television, and concerts were
donating to help fund the rebuilding of our North Eastern cities. With news
channels and advertisements showing the damages of the storm to their
audiences, people who were unable to see how largely the storm affect cities
like New York and New Jersey were able to give to help others. For a solid
month the media did a great job at helping to show the damages in New Jersey.
But after a month the messages seemed to get lost. There were little to no
messages at all about the cleanup and seemed to be forgotten about. Although
the news stations and advertisements seemed to do a great job at first, it now seemed
like they had moved on.
Like people always say,
seeing is believing. As images from the storm come across the screen they touch
people’s hearts. These viewers are now able to see the horrors instead of just
hear the stories. Having a lot of media coverage would promote people to help
even in the smallest way. In our world today the fastest way to spread the word
is through some type of media. Media coverage refuses to talk about climate
change so they don’t put much time into issues such as hurricane sandy. Cable
news media, in keeping up with Romney and Obama during the presidential
debates; continue to ignore climate changes even though their New York offices
are under water because of it. (Khalek) Media is a
large deciding factor on how fast news gets to people to make them aware and
how the government will also react to the situation at hand.
The big questions is how
effective is the relief effort. Going into this situation I believe the
government had good intentions. Their plan of helping the victims and starting
to rebuild communities just fell short. Government and government aids such as
FEMA took a while before any help was even sent. Residents came together to
help clean up and restore their lives to the best of their ability while they
waited on the government’s aid. In times like this I think help should be sent
immediately. There are plenty of ways the government and media could have sped
up the process. Media had coverage on Hurricane Sandy for about a month after
it took place. In my opinion the media should have kept on the issue and
encourage people to continue to help and donate in any way they could to the
relief, whether that be by radio, television, or even advertisements. All that
media attention would cause not only more people to be willing to lend a
helping hand but it would also put the spotlight on the government and force them
to make arrangements for aids and materials to be sent faster. Hurricanes are
traumatic experiences that can cause families to lose everything. When a storm
such as hurricane Sandy takes place it should not take an extended amount of
time to get help on the scene to the take care of the families affected and to
start repairing all of the damage.
Hurricane Sandy opened the
eyes of many people and showed the North Eastern coast they are just as
vulnerable as any other city to hurricanes. With the media failing to cover the
aftermath of the hurricane the public has seemed to forget the amount of damage
that was done and is still lingering. With government agencies such as FEMA and
Red Cross stepping in to help, we are forced to wonder; Are they really doing
all they can do? Even though FEMA deployed 7,414 workers to assist in the
relief effort, they were not positioned fast enough. (FEMA) This forced the
residents of New Jersey to handle the clean-up themselves. We need the
government to work faster to resolve problems within the states, as well as
doing everything in their power to help the families that are left with nothing
in their possession because of Hurricane Sandy.
