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A winter storm battered the Northeast coast Thursday after cutting power to at least 115,000 homes and dumping record snowfalls in the New York City area. The National Weather Service warned of wind gusts as high as 60 mph along the coast, “minor to moderate” flooding from storm surges, and more snow, particularly in New England, early Thursday. More than 600,000 people were without electricity as a result of superstorm Sandy and the new storm. NBCNewYork.com reported that more than 198,000 Long Island Power Authority customers, 55,000 Con Edison customers in New York City and Westchester County, 197,560 Jersey Central...

Volunteers and disaster victims have taken rescue, recovery and security into their own hands on New York's storm-ravaged borough of Staten Island, where they say FEMA has forgotten them. Already without power for more than a week in the wake of superstorm Sandy, hard-hit residents of the borough's South Shore braved a nor'easter Wednesday night, many -- perhaps hundreds -- huddling in condemned homes and ignoring orders to evacuate out of fear looters would take what little Mother Nature has left them. "FEMA packed up everything yesterday and left the area," said MaryLou Wong, whose home in the Midland Beach...

A FEMA disaster recovery center in a Hurricane Sandy-ravaged corner of Staten Island that was supposed to provide shelter, food and assistance to hurricane victims Wednesday morning went MIA, posting a sign saying that they were closed due to the approaching nor’easter. A printed paper sign taped to the front door of on the center at 6581 Hylan Blvd. at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday read “FEMA Center Closed Due to Weather.” The front doors of the disaster recovery center, which is housed inside the Mount Lorretto Catholic Youth Organization, were unlocked, but there was no staff anywhere in sight for at...

(AP) - Government leaders are turning their attention to the next crisis unfolding in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy: finding housing for potentially tens of thousands of people left homeless. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it has already dispensed close to $200 million in emergency housing assistance and has put 34,000 people in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area up in hotels and motels. But local, state and federal officials have yet to lay out a specific, comprehensive plan for finding them long-term places to live, even as cold weather sets in. And given the scarcity and...

Hurricane-relief Guardsmen tossed out of armory - for Victoria's Secret show The Victoria’s Secret show must go on — even if it means kicking out hardworking men and women in uniform. Dozens of National Guardsmen, and Army and Air Force personnel who have been sleeping at Manhattan’s Lexington Armory in between hurricane-relief shifts are being booted — to make room for Victoria’s Secret models in anticipation of Wednesday’s runway show. About 300 uniformed personnel have been bunking down at the armory at various times since Sandy hit. But their numbers will be reduced to 60 by Wednesday for the event,...

Mayor Bloomberg’s Response to Sandy Leaves Many New Yorkers Out in the Cold The mayor has brilliantly stage-managed his handling of the storm, but outside the city’s affluent precincts numerous angry residents feel abandoned by his administration as days have passed and help has remained distant, writes Harry Siegel. “Are you from OEM? Or FEMA?” “No, we’re from Brooklyn.” That was the exchange when, after nearly six hours, the volunteer group I spent Sunday with finally managed to deliver supplies— flashlights, blankets, winter jackets, baby supplies, and pet food—to Staten Islanders who’d been rocked by Hurricane Sandy. On television, New...

The Obama administration's strategy of prepositioning supplies for quick distribution in disasters apparently has fallen short on meeting the demand for drinking water in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.   "The agency [FEMA} appears to have been unprepared to distribute bottled water to Hurricane Sandy victims when the storm hit [last Monday]," Breitbart News reported over the weekend.

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Taking a break from the campaign and posing for photo-ops with FEMA and other non-players in the recovery effort in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, while insisting that because of his leadership the entire country is behind the recovery efforts.(1) He wanted to show the country that he was taking charge and told the reporters on hand “There is nothing more important than us getting this right” Doing nothing is not getting it right and that is what this administration is doing while claiming success. One reporter in a moment of clarity asked Mr. Obama about the fear, suffering,...

I don't know about you, but I can't wait for this election to be concluded. Maybe it's because I live in the New York City metro and we've been force-fed a dose of "real life"--right up in our face--this week, maybe its because we all need to focus on genuinely important priorities, but for whatever reason I have "2012 Fatigue." As I pen these thoughts the candidates are in the midst of making their closing arguments. President Obama is manically trying to defend turf in Colorado, Virginia, and Florida, and Governor Romney is surging with an expanding map in Pennsylvania,...

It would be dark soon at the Coney Island Houses, the fourth night without power, elevators and water. Another night of trips up and down pitch-black staircases, lighted by shaky flashlights and candles. Another night of retreating from the dark.

STAMFORD, Conn., Nov. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- More than five million bottles of water will be arriving this weekend and early next week in New York and New Jersey communities hard hit by Hurricane Sandy. Approximately 100 trucks will be converging on the region from Nestle Waters North America (NWNA) plants in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas and Maine, where employees are working tirelessly to meet the acute needs of storm victims. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the New York Office of Emergency Management made the request for bottled water to meet immediate need in the region.... Nestle Waters...

US Government Invited Brazilian Psychic to Avert Sandy By Julio Severo After Superstorm Sandy, everybody knows what happened: tragedy. What many ignore is what happened before: spiritual tragedy. According to Istoé, a major Brazilian magazine, Brazilian psychic Adelaide Scritori had travelled in a hurry to the Caribbean Islands by invitation from the US government and an insurance company in New York. Her purposed mission was to weaken Superstorm Sandy. Adelaide Scritori Her husband, who is also the spokesman for Coral Snake Chief Foundation in Brazil, said that her mission was a success, because without her intervention the superstorm would...

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, it seems to be pretty clear that residents of New York City and the surrounding areas could use all the help they can get. However, a Davisburg man said some people in the area are more interested in “protecting their turf” than in distributing those supplies to the masses. Mike James, an independent trucker, said he and three other truckers were told to haul a load of transformers to the city to replace equipment anticipated to be lost in the storm. James, two men from Holly and a Flint man arrived in the city...

Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc across the Eastern Seaboard, from North Carolina to New England, knocking down power lines, and flooding coastal communities. Hardest hit were New York and New Jersey, leaving more than a million residents without power and many without homes.   IBEW members from throughout the country are pitching in to restore power and fix damaged infrastructure. “Devastating,” Wall, N.J., Local 1289 Business Manager Edward Stroup, III, says about Sandy. Stroup represents workers at Jersey Central Power and Light – a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. – which provides power to more than 1 million central New Jersey residents....

But the key question is does it have enough for flood damage? Sandy has flooded thousands of homes in its devastating path, and estimates are that damages will in the billions of dollars. FEMA, which runs the federal flood insurance program, has to pick up the tab. But FEMA already owes $18 billion to the Treasury Department, thanks to Hurricane Katrina. Currently, insurance experts say FEMA's flood insurance program has access to funds totaling $3.8 billion, much of it in loans. If flood claims exhaust the fund, Congress may have to step in with additional taxpayer money. That will add...

Staten Island resident John Tabacco told Neil Cavuto this morning that Staten Island is still alone. ** There is no federal help. ** The feds just drive by with their clipboards. ** We just found three more dead people in the pile this morning.John Tabacco on the situation in Staten Island: “This morning we’re distributing stuff here and we’re helping people dig out and we hear the sanitation guys scream out that there are bodies in the pile. Everybody jumps on the pile and starts pulling away debris. And, unfortunately, probably not reported right now, it was probably an hour...

Obama at FEMA: "We still have a long way to go"By Lucy Madison/ CBS News/ November 3, 2012, 12:42 PM President Obama on Saturday acknowledged the nation has "a long way to go" in the aftermath following Superstorm Sandy, but pledged the administration will be putting in a "120 percent effort" to ensure the impacted regions get the assistance they need. Mr. Obama, speaking after a briefing about ongoing recovery efforts at the FEMA headquarters in Washington, D.C., emphasized his commitment to restoring power, pumping flooded areas, removing debris, and attending to the needs of those impacted by the storm,...

<p>FEMA's vaunted "lean forward" strategy that called for advanced staging of supplies for emergency distribution failed to live up to its billing in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.</p> <p>In fact, the agency appears to have been completely unprepared to distribute bottled water to Hurricane Sandy victims when the storm hit this Monday. In contrast to its stated policy, FEMA failed to have any meaningful supplies of bottled water -- or any other supplies, for that matter -- stored in nearby facilities as it had proclaimed it would on its website. This was the case despite several days advance warning of the impending storm.</p>

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has placed a rush order of two million meals to be delivered to Floyd Bennett New York Harbor Parks, and Lakehurst New Jersey. The solicitation was placed at 2:30 pm EST on 2 November 2012, with a response time of no later than 8 pm on the same day. The solicitation was amended less than four hours later for providers to provide a quote of four million meals, preferably of the self-heating variety. The request is for self-heating Meals Ready to Eat (MRE) with a 13-month...