Courtesy of Pam Martens.
During Hurricane Sandy, Photo of Lobby of 140 West Street in Lower Manhattan, Released by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo
Despite what the paper of record would have you believe, Hurricane Sandy was not about killer trees. Hurricane Sandy, like Hurricane Katrina, was about killer water.
The New York Times put it this way on Tuesday, before the death toll had climbed even higher: “There were 22 deaths reported in New York City, where the toll was heaviest, and 5 more fatalities elsewhere in the state. Most of all, it was the trees. Uprooted or cracked by the furious winds, they became weapons that flattened cars, houses and pedestrians.”
Here’s the way those last two sentences should have read: “Most of all, it was the wall of water. Giant storm surges rushing over the sea walls, turning roads into instant rivers replete with white caps that pulled two toddlers from their mother’s arms and sent many more to a watery grave in their basements.”
As of this morning, only 3 people in New York City are reported to have died as a result of falling trees, or 10 percent of the now reported 34 deaths in New York City. A staggering 64 percent of the storm-related deaths in New York City resulted directly from drowning or as a result of an unprecedented wall of water hitting the individual directly or while they were inside their homes.
On Staten Island, where a giant storm surge turned homes into death traps, details on five more deaths were released, in addition to those we reported yesterday: an 89-year-old woman, Ella Norris, was found drowned in her home at 728 Buel Ave.; Anastasia Rispoli, 73, was found dead in her home; Andrew Semarco, 61, was found dead in his home on Mills Avenue; Leonard Montalto, 53, was pronounced dead in his home at Fox Beach Avenue; James Rossi, 85, was found in deep water in his backyard and pronounced dead.
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