For public housing residents after Sandy, ‘a slow-motion Katrina’

November 10, 2012

by Lucas Kavner

Brooklyn, N.Y. – Ask anyone living in Cobble Hill or Carroll Gardens or Park Slope earlier this week, and they would tell you that they have power, hot water and wi-fi. In fact, most of the $1 million-plus townhouses and local businesses in Brooklyn’s wealthier neighborhoods never lost any basic necessities, even during the worst of the storm.

The gas is on, so Richard Bates can cook by candlelight, but life has been hard in Brooklyn’s Red Hook Houses and for tens of thousands of other public housing residents without heat, water or power since Hurricane Sandy hit. No lights or elevators function in their 12-story buildings. – Photo: Ruth Fremson, New York Times

But the Gowanus Houses, a low-income public housing complex owned and operated by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), which falls almost at the intersection of those three neighborhoods, is an exception. During flooding from Hurricane Sandy, water seeped into the basement of one of the larger buildings, shorting out electrical cables that were located there and destroying its boiler. It took days before the water was even drained and the damage assessed, despite the fact that the complex houses almost 3,000 residents.

Power was restored on Friday, but its 12-day absence created severe conditions in the area, according to Councilman Stephen Levin, who represents the district where the Gowanus Houses is located. Many on the highest floors couldn’t get down without climbing 14 flights of stairs. Elderly residents with debilitating diseases and respiratory problems were literally stuck for a week, surviving off of food, medical supplies and flashlights donated primarily by individual volunteers, who have been working for these residents every day since Sandy hit.

One Occupy Sandy volunteer discovered a family without heat, warming their apartment with an open stove. Levin said a young girl with epilepsy was not able to plug in her nebulizer, while another woman, whose son is asthmatic, needed an electrical oxygen machine.

And as of Wednesday morning, more than a week after Sandy hit, at least two of the buildings at the Gowanus Houses were still without power, though a few residents said that number was actually five, and many others were without hot water and heat. Comparatively, power had been restored to most NYCHA complexes last week, including those in Lower Manhattan, Queens and other parts of Brooklyn.

via For public housing residents after Sandy, ‘a slow-motion Katrina’ | San Francisco Bay View.