Ace @ Ace of Spades HQ:
Via Hot Air, New York City — and large swaths of New Jersey, too — are currently wastelands without power, food, or drivable roads.
I just returned from Manhattan. I ran for 5 hours with stops, covering 12 miles in total, scoping the island from west to east. You will not hear these stories from the Mayor or Governor; these are my observations, informed by discussions with real people who live in lower Manhattan:1) Virtually every retailer, restaurant and grocery store south of 38th street is CLOSED. This is in an area covering 8 square miles. I only observed a handful of bodegas in Soho and the East Village, along with Ben’s Pizza on W3rd and MacDougal serving customers. Whole Foods Union Square had a sign reading “because there is no electricity, we cannot open.” There is no food, other than what you have in your refrigerator.
2) To that point, there are close to 400,000 people living below 38th street without power. The mayor earlier said it could be 3 days without power; some Con Ed guys I spoke with in the East Village think it could be longer. Nobody knows.
3) No working traffic lights in this region (drivers are generally being cautious and appropriately yielding to pedestrians). Apartment stairwells are pitch black. High rises have no elevator access.
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5) There is no running water or flushing toilets for people living in the Jacob Riis Houses and surrounding NYCHA buildings on the Lower East Side. In my estimate, this is roughly 20,000 people. One family I spoke with is packing their bags and moving to Brooklyn until services are restored. But it did not appear that all residents were evacuating, even as their toilets did not flush.
6) I did not witness a single Red Cross Truck or FEMA Vehicle or in lower Manhattan. Recall the assistance these agencies provided after 9/11 – this is NOT HAPPENING. There are bound to be hundreds of elderly people, rich and poor, who live on the upper floors of buildings with elevators that are now disabled. IF POWER IS NOT RESTORED, THIS WILL MOVE FROM BEING AN ECONOMIC DISASTER TO A HUMANITARIAN DISASTER.
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9) The water from the storm surge was invariably contaminated – floating garbage, wood pieces from the dock, and possibly sewage. One Nuyorican woman who lived on Avenue C near 12th street noted the water level peaked above her waist. She was still visibly shaken this afternoon. She also recalled a huge noise at 8 pm when the substation failed. The sky, in her words, turned from black to green.
In New Jersey, entire sections of the shore were essentially wiped off the map by the storm. Flotsam and broken timbers are left behind. Beach towns are are now just beaches.
Staten Island — part of New York City that rarely gets much media coverage, as reporters don’t live there — is devastated. At least 19 people are dead; they’ll probably find more bodies.
Watch the video there. FEMA’s not in Staten Island, by the way. I remember the media being very angry at George Bush for not directing FEMA to New Orleans in a manner they judged timely.
But the outrage is growing. Despite my snipe that reporters don’t typically cover Staten Island, NBC covered it (!!!), and they did note the anger growing at the slowness of relief efforts.
And old people are still on high floors of buildings without working elevators, or food, or sufficient emergency response.
And where’s Obama? Well, he put in his appearance, said a few Magic Words, and returned to the campaign trail, with laurels around his neck for doing… nothing.
@Tom:
It is not health insurance that kills or saves people, it is health care. and we all know that health care is available for anyone that needs it. Ask all those people coming over from Mexico without health insurance if they are denied care at a hospital.
What planet have you been living on?
@Red,
You clearly are not aware of the concept of probabilities. Is it possible Obama could have hit upon a perfect mix of policy and we might have a better economy today? Of course. Could things have continued on the Bush trajectory if he had done differently? Absolutely. I will take a recovery over disaster, despite your impatience. How short your memory is. You want to hand the ship right back to the people who ran it into an iceberg, and you’re not even embarrassed about it.
What a staggeringly ignorant observation. Did you ever wonder what those annual checkups are for? Do you go to the emergency room for a checkup to find out if there’s something medically preventative you can address? When it’s too late, what does the emergency room do for people dying of cancer, or people with heart disease who can’t buy medication? Real people without insurance die every day for preventative reasons.
i knew some good people who have.
@Tom:
My, my, you seem to know little of the society you live in. There are multiple, nay, thousands, of charities that help poor people with medical bills. And many drug companies have programs that help those who can’t afford their medication from a local pharmacy. And perhaps you can tell me how the U.S. government is going to force people to have annual checkups if those people are not inclined to do so now? Is that another violation of our Constitutional rights that you progressives support; forcing people to get annual checkups? And those people who claim they can’t afford the $50-100.00 for a annual physical through a clinic where the fees are income based, do they have cable TV, cell phones, drink alcohol, smoke?
Now, you say you will take recovery. What recovery? The unemployment rate is higher than it was when Obama took office. Gasoline is double the cost. The prices in the CPI shows inflation that is rapidly spiraling out of control. While a rise in KWH from an average of .12 to the current .135 doesn’t sound like much, it is a lot to a family trying to pay an additional 15-20% on groceries than they did four years ago.
Oh, and Bush didn’t run the economy into the ditch. He simply inherited (I know you liberals looooove that word) the actions of previous presidents like Carter and Clinton who put the Community Reinvestment Act on steroids and force lending agencies to lend to people who had no possible hope of ever repaying those loans.
Learn some history, Tom, you will look less stupid.
This peer reviewed study, Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults, published by the American Journal for Public Health, concluded that in 2005 approximately 45,000 deaths of Americans between the ages of 18 and 65 could be attributed to a lack of health insurance coverage.
An earlier study, conducted in 1993, had previously concluded that the annual rate of death for people in the U.S. without insurance was 25 percent higher that for people who had insurance.
@Greg: I live in the USA, I thought you did also. Name one person that you know that went to a hospital for treatment that was refused. just one.
@Tom: 53
I would also, but now that we’re in the middle of a disaster.. Have you ever heard the saying, when you find out you’re in a hole, stop digging..
@Tom: I find it humanly impossible to be as ignorant as you’re pretending to be. All in support of an absolute Zero. You ever hear of medicaid? are you aware that every county in the USA has a public health dept? Are you aware of Planned parenthood that gives all the loose women all the condoms they want? So, you can pretend you’re ignorant, I’ll give you more credit than that, you’re just playing a game.
@retire05: @retire05: Actually, the Catholic Relief Organizations are a major part of providing medical care for the poor with out insurance and Obama is trying to put them out of business.
@Greg: Wonder how many drug dealers who were shot in Chicago last month had medical insurance?
@Redteam:
One can only assume that you are sadly dull-witted or perhaps 12 years old in your odd insistance that all medical care takes place in an emergency room.
@Greg: You obviously didn’t read that report. It deals with ‘private’ insurance, not government insurance. And since I have extensive training in statistics, I can tell you that the data is ‘not significant’ I don’t know if you intend to be misleading in what you wrote, but the numbers you refer to are not the ones that would be impacted by a government run insurance program. you’re talking apples and oranges here. Read up and don’t be so un-informed. you usually do better than that. (I understand you’re trying to make a point, but…….)
@Randy: but Randy, they were counting on Zero providing it for them…..
@Tom: Stop digging, haven’t you learned anything?
@Tom: Tommy, have you ever been to an emergency room? people go there with colds, coughs, aching bones, dropsy, etc. they don’t have to be sick, they just have to go. the same requirement as any general practitioner, they don’t have to pay.
@Redteam:
So you only go to the doctor when you’re sick? You don’t get checkups? Can you answer that question please?
@Tom:
Why don’t you answer questions as you demand that of others?
How are you going to force people to get annual checkups? Are you going to support the violation of their “choice” to not have an annual physical? What do you leftists propose we do to those people who refuse to get checkups? Put them in jail? Tax them?
Do the people you seem to think can’t afford an annual physical have cable TV? Drink alcohol? Buy lottery tickets? Smoke? Do drugs? So that they can’t afford the $60-100 cost of an annual physical at a clinic that has income based fees?
Try answering questions yourself, Tommy boy.
@retire05:
Why would I answer a question that makes no sense? If you can point out where I wrote I wanted to “force” anyone to get checkups I’ll answer. Otherwise, your fumbling, primative understanding of this discussion begs that you’d refrain from writing your endless paragraphs of embarrassing tripe, but that’s obviously not an option.
@Tom:
Simple. Just answer the questions. You are making the claim that annual physicals help what? lower costs from preventable illnesses? And if that is the goal of the left, then how are you going to force people to get annual physicals?
Or are my questions above your I.Q, Tommy boy?
You seem to think that your talent lies in bedazzling with brilliance or baffling with bullshit. I suggest you limit your conversation to 3rd graders.
retire05
you know this is the new trend since a generation to be having checkup every year,
thatès where the cost are and you know, I never go for a check up, and Ièm in good health,
and my niece and my sister are going steady every year, and they always are told of scary stuff in their body to be send for an mri or some of alike machine, they always are told that
something is to be put in check with pills,, my niece has insurance which pay
by bills sent to them of some 10thousand dollars or more, and they have to go back for test,
its incredible the waste of money happening in there, it kind of make me feel that
I must save by not going, to make up for what it is spend on them
and they always ask how I feel,, and tell me I should be check, they are confounded that I am healthy,
I have notice that trend on many people too.
@retire05:
Many treatable conditions are discovered in annual physicals. A pretty simple point.
And you have no response to my request for proof for your assertion, which i think it’s now safe to call a lie. This is not the first time you’ve clumsily proven yourself a liar at my request, is it now? I know you have no shame or integrity, but you’re writing things that anyone can see are not true… It’s just kind of uncomfortable for everyone. Please stop lying: co-signed Everyone.
TOM
the last person to lie is retire05
you think this blog has liars, the lies come from you all, not here,
they do not need to lie, why would they no reason to lie here,
but you always want to pick on someone here, you are despicable
@Redteam, #56:
Whether or not one has access to a hospital in an emergency situation is not a measure of whether or not one has access to adequate health care. I had a friend who died of cancer. She had no trouble getting into the hospital once her condition was advanced enough to become symptomatic, but by then it was too late to do anything. Routine checkups and screenings earlier on might well have saved her life.
The mortality rates for people with chronic illnesses such as diabetes, asthma, hypertension, and heart disease are much higher among people who can’t afford to see a doctor regularly. In addition, public costs are much higher because of this, because the uninsured frequently land in the hospital at public expense only after their condition has become far more serious, and far more expensive to treat.
GREG
you have an extreme example to bring,
how about reducing the wait time at the HOSPITAL
FOR THE REALLY SICK AND INJURED BY ENLARGING THE CHECK UP
TIME FROM PEOPLE WHO TAKE THE TIME OF OTHER AND MONEY, FOR CHECK UP,
THE WAITING TIME WOULD BE REDUCE FOR THOSE WHO ARE REALLY IN NEED OF INSTANT CARE, BUT are reduce to wait hours in excruciating pain, because there is 20 young and strong youths in perfectly good health having their annual checkup, in front of them.
how about there was a time, when doctors had another job to supply their living needs,
@Tom: #66 yep, I get regular checkups and if I didn’t have insurance, I would use medicaid, or county health dept or local hospital emergency room. All will provide services free. (along with hundreds of charities)
@ilovebeeswarzone:#70 Bees, as always, brilliant. You are correct that ‘check ups’ are what is driving these abhorrent costs. My wife hasn’t gone for a checkup in over 40 years and has no medical problems. Her sisters get a check up every time you turn around and the have tons of medical problems. Most of which they likely wouldn’t have if not for the ‘checkups’ . I agree with Retire05 that the people that likely ‘need’ checkups wouldn’t get them even if they have free insurance.
@Tom: #71 Tommy I see no lies in Retire05 posts. If I want to know the truth, I ask him. I don’t ask you or a couple of your cohorts.
@Greg: #73, Greg, that is the biggest crock.
So why didn’t she have a checkup? Does she have cable tv? does she have a cell phone? did she prefer those over health care? Are you saying that she died from the lack of a check up or from cancer?
Not true, there is no such thing. Every person in this country can see a doctor regularly. Where do you people get this crap? Any one that can’t ‘afford’ health insurance is eligible for medicaid. I can’t believe there are people in this country that don’t know how to wipe their butts, but Dimocrats will never cease to amaze me.