The Rockaways and Hurricane Sandy

Introduction

The cleanup of New York after Hurricane Sandy has cost taxpayers at least twice as much as the national post-disaster average, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, which city officials selected to help handle the huge job. There are a few Sandy-related stories definitely worth reading in today's papers, most notably, Sheri Fink's powerful account of the post-Sandy struggles of residents in 7-11 Seagirt Avenue - “four hulking towers with more than 900 apartments along the beach in Far Rockaway.” Fink examines the death of one elderly building resident and also looks at how one filmmaker's video on YouTube rang the alarm bell about conditions in the complex known as the Sand Castle.

The Daily News looks at some problems with the city's Rapid Repairs program - with some contractors not returning for weeks to finish the work they've started.

And the Senate GOP has come up with a much smaller aid package for Sandy relief. The Times' Ray Hernandez notes: “Democrats say it is a token proposal intended to give cover to Republicans who will not vote for the larger bill.”

Discussion

Federal officials defended the exceptionally high cost — so far about $177 million for the nearly one million cubic yards of debris handled by the Army Corps — saying it was justified by the complicated assignment of quickly disposing of debris in the midst of a major urban area.

New York had the option of hiring its own private contractor to remove the debris, as New Jersey did, after it was warned that the Army Corps had proved in past disasters to be a more expensive alternative.

“It is a Cadillac versus a Chevrolet,” Mark Merritt, a former top official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said of the Army Corps compared with private haulers.

But with no standing contract in place, New York turned to the Army Corps to handle the heavy lifting, after city sanitation crews assembled the debris in enormous piles in different spots near the disaster zones on Staten Island and in Queens.

Col. John Pilot, the debris team chief with the Army Corps who supervised the New York City effort, said taxpayers got their money's worth, as the federal deployment of hundreds of trucks and even barges helped the city return to normal more rapidly.

“Some people think the Corps is expensive, but when you see what we bring to the table, we really are not,” Colonel Pilot said. “We do it right.”

Among the reasons for the high price was a decision by the Army Corps to ship some of the debris from Staten Island by barge, which moved via the Hudson River to near Albany, before it had to be loaded back onto a truck for the trip to a landfill near Rochester, about 300 miles from the city.

The goal was to limit truck traffic on highways, but the method ended up costing more because the debris had to be handled multiple times.

Army Corps officials said they were also proud of their recycling efforts, as they ...