Environmental Activists March Across Brooklyn Bridge On 5th Anniversary of Hurricane Sandy

Thousands of activists marched across the Brooklyn Bridge this weekend in an effort to raise awareness of climate change and spur the government in to action on the 5-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy. The hurricane, which swept across NYC and left nearly $75 billion of damage in its wake, was only one of numerous large storms which hit the United States and Caribbean over the last few years.

The environment advocates claimed that these natural disasters are directly linked with climate change, and that society needs to make a change in order to prevent further disaster.

Executive Director of New York Environmental Justive Alliance Eddie Bautista said:
"Here we are on another warm day in October, and we know why! Five years ago tomorrow, the city was visited by a severe weather event, the likes of which we had never seen, and then this past summer we have seen hurricane after hurricane devastating the global South and communities of color throughout the lower parts of the United States."

Rosa Zuchuk, an activist, explained:
"We're here today to be part of this reminder to our city and state.... we're here as part of the defense of our city against this."

Brooklyn DA Hynes Honors Twenty of New York’s Finest

DA Charles Hynes Honoring New York's Finest Finest

District Attorney Charles Hynes of Kings County named today the twenty recipients of the 23rd annual Law Enforcement Appreciation Awards. The award honors those members of the law enforcement community who have gone beyond the call of duty to protect residents of Brooklyn.

The announcement, which was made at the Brooklyn Law School, mentioned members of the New York Police Department, New York Fire Department, Kings County District Attorney’s Office, New York City Department of Correction, New York State Unified Court System, and the Bridge and Tunnel Officers Benevolent Association. The twenty were honored for their bravery, diligence, dedication to their jobs and concern and involvement in the community.

"The officers recognized at today’s ceremony are extraordinary men and women who represent the best law enforcement officers in the country," Hynes said. "They play a significant role in keeping Brooklyn safe, sometimes risking their own lives in the process. I am proud to honor these outstanding officers.”

Three of the officers honored were Lieutenant Joseph Smith, Sergeant Phillip Berfond and Police Officer Dale Stone. All three are from Transit District 34 of the NYPD Transit Bureau. During Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012 the three hurried to Coney Island to assist three colleagues whose patrol van was stuck in the rapidly rising water flooding all around them. The rescuers broke the passenger window of the van and placed the officers in a rowboat. As the six were leaving the scene they came across six other people with a dog trapped on top of a number of cars. One of those people was rescued on the spot, while the officers waited with the rest of the people until help arrived from their Transit District. Stone, Berfond and Smith all went to Maimonides Hospital to be treated for hypothermia. They made a rapid recovery and were soon released.

Music Collective Releases Benefit Album to Help Occupy Sandy

All Funds Raised by "The Storm is Passing Over" will go to help Hurricane Sandy Victims

Produced in only two weeks, Kensington’s Mason Jar Music released “The Storm is Passing Over” to help raise funds to benefit the work Occupy Sandy is doing to help people harmed by October’s ravaging storm, Hurricane Sandy.

The goal of MJM is to “Preserve Analog Principles in a Digital Age,” and works hard to retain the techniques and other special qualities of the not-so-long-ago past. In the case of “The Storm is Passing Over” MJM gathered together some of today’s best independent folk singers to record fifteen classic American folk songs dealing with ‘storms.’

Money raised from the sales of the album will go directly to Occupy Sandy, which is a leading organization doing relief work for many of Sandy’s victims in and around New York City and the tri-state area.

Included among the folk artists participating on the album are Roseanne Cash, Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck, Town Hall, Tift Merritt, and more.

Recorded in just 14 days during December, some of the artists performed from the comfort of their own homes which were in locations around the world, including Nashville, Portland and Paris. Most of the artists however came to the Kensington recording studio of MJM, collaborating with  co-founders Dan Knobler and Jon Seale.


For a donation of only $5 visitors to http://thestormispassingover.com/ can receive a digital download of this heartfelt album knowing that all of their money will be used to help victims of Hurricane Sandy.

Sandy’s Victims Get Helping Hand from United Cerebral Palsy of New York

Schevone Williams

Gravesend, Brooklyn resident, thirty-two year old Schevone Williams, who has cerebral palsy, lost almost everything when her apartment was inundated with flood waters from the torrential forces of Hurricane Sandy.

Using a specialized device to communicate Williams explained what happened.

"My apartment was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy,” said Williams. “I lost everything my hospital bed, my motorized wheelchair and all of my clothes.”

In addition to her specialized equipment which makes her life possible as a person with cerebral palsy, she also lost the ordinary objects everyone needs in their home, such as her major appliances including her refrigerator, stove and washing machine.

Williams, who is dependent on her $17,000 wheelchair for mobility, was at home when the flood waters entered, bringing in debris from the outside, and threatening to drown her.

“The Fire Department actually rescued Schevone, that’s how serious it was for her,” says Amy Bittinger the director of Family Support Services with United Cerebral Palsy of New York City.

According to Bittinger UCP of New York had to come to the aid immediately of many clients who were at risk during Sandy. Now there most pressing concern is finding Williams a replacement wheelchair.

“We were able to get her a loaner manual chair with proper positioning and we were able to get her augmentative communication device working again,” says Bittinger.

The Kensington branch of United Cerebral Palsy of New York has many visitors with a range of disabilities due to the popularity of their innovative “tech works” room. The room offers the latest in technology to help ease some of the challenges of having cerebral palsy or other disabilities, including iPads, which can help with communication. There is also a mobile van which visits different locations throughout the city to publicize the latest assistive technologies.

“This way we can go to communities that can’t come here and tabling events and be able to show products at those events,” says Liz Voluz, the director of Assistive Technology.

United Cerebral Palsy of New York has been answering the phones non-stop since Sandy devastated so many lives, helping people with disabilities get their lives back on track by getting their hi-tech equipment replaced. Workers at UCP New York say that Williams should have a new wheelchair before Christmas.

Brooklyn Rentals Rare as Sandy Victims Look for Housing

Some of Sandy's Damage in Rockaway 

Lorraine Massoni and her three children were forced out of their Rockaway home by severe flooding in the wake of the devastation wreaked on New York by Hurricane Sandy. Since then the family has been staying with friends and relatives while they look for alternative digs for herself and her children. But so far she has only run into a brick wall.

“I have reached out to I can’t even tell you how many Realtors,” Massoni, 44, said as she drove around Brooklyn in her rented minivan with her children. “They tell you they have places, they say, ‘Let me talk to the landlord and see if they take dogs,’ then nothing. They don’t even call you back.”

Massoni recently looked at a two-bedroom flat in Kensington renting for a pricey $2,150 per month. The price is almost double the $2,495 she received from a federal relief agency to cover two months’ rent. And the Kensington place is, at 1,200 square-feet, about half the size of her Rockaway home- not big enough for her family of five. Massoni will just have to keep looking.

She is not alone in her frustrating efforts to find an alternative living arrangement that does not involve sleeping on a friend’s pull-out bed or staying in a relative’s guest room or basement. Rental vacancies in Queens and Brooklyn are about 2 to 3 percent, a low number causing heartache for many displaced New Yorkers.

“It couldn’t be worse timing,” says Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel Inc. in New York. The market in Brooklyn is tight partly because banks are reluctant to write mortgages, so few renters are buying a home and moving out, he said. With hotel occupancy rates at high levels, Miller said, “there are just not a lot of places to stay.”