Actual sign hung on ten FEMA offices in the hurricane-wracked Staten Island area, as reported by the New York Post: "FEMA CENTER CLOSED DUE TO WEATHER."
The Post goes on to note that the office at the Mount Loretto Community Center did nonetheless open at noon. The weather in question is a hellish snowstorm that dropped anywhere from four to nine inches of snow on the area, delivered with 60-mile-per-hour winds. But remember, as the New York Times sagely advised us, "only Big Government can save you from big storms."
Of course, the American media completely lost interest in reporting on the ineffective-to-disastrous federal response to Hurricane Sandy as soon as President Obama slipped off his stylish bomber jacket and flew off to his next fundraiser, but the UK Daily Mail is still on the case:
Mark L. Fendrick, of Staten Island, tweeted Wednesday night: 'My son had just got his power back 2 days ago now along comes this nor'easter and it's out again.'
John Miksad, senior vice president of electric operations at Consolidated Edison, the chief utility in New York City, said, 'I know everyone's patience is wearing thin.'
Eric Durr, a spokesperson for the New York National Guard told DNAInfo that while he couldn???t comment on specific cases, the organization told its troops 'to pay attention to the weather and don???t take unnecessary risks.'
Under ordinary circumstances, a storm of this sort wouldn't be a big deal, but large swaths of the landscape were still an open wound, with the electrical system highly fragile and many of Sandy's victims still mucking out their homes and cars and shivering in the deepening cold.
It was also noted that New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg "didn't issue mandatory evacuations, and many people stayed behind, some because they feared looting," which Bloomberg didn't use the National Guard to halt, because he found their guns distasteful.
The Fox News exit poll showed that "About four voters in 10 say Obama???s response to Hurricane Sandy was important to their vote (42 percent), and they backed the president by a better than two-to-one margin. Fifteen percent said it was the 'most important' factor in their vote." The media would have crucified a Republican for handling the storm like this, but the combination of an unserious electorate, short attention spans, and media bias made for a rather impressive super-storm as well.
