An NYPD investigation found that Wu allegedly started the fire after he had argument with a woman he has a child with, and then tried to keep first responders from entering. The woman and the child were accounted for after the fire. A police officer from the 5th Precinct, a nine-year veteran of the force, sustained a broken hand from fighting with Wu and was transported to Downtown Hospital.
Wu, who lives in apartment 2A of the building, was arrested and is expected to be charged with first-degree arson, second-degree murder, attempted assault on a police officer and resisting arrest.

Léman Manhattan Names New Head of Lower School
Rachel Griffin has just been named the new Head of Lower School at Léman Manhattan Preparatory School. Officially joining the faculty after being interim Lower School Head, school officials have high hopes for this new addition.

“With a diverse and accomplished educational background, Griffin embodies Léman’s commitment to global education and delivering the highest-caliber academics,” Drew Alexander, head of school for Léman Manhattan (grades K through 12), said in a statement.

“I am truly excited and very honored to be offered this position at Léman Manhattan, a school that I truly love,” said Griffin, who is a Columbia University Teachers College alumna. “I am dedicated to Léman’s mission, to providing a purposeful world-class education and inspiring our amazing students to reach their full potential.”

Chinatown Bus Hits Pedestrians
Two pedestrians walking in the crosswalk at the entry to the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown were run over by a Fung Wah bus last week. According to Gothamist, an NYPD spokesman described the two people as being “unconscious and unresponsive” as the first responders arrived. Both victims, a 57-year-old woman who was critically injured and a 63-year-old man who was stable, were brought to New York Presbyterian after being struck near Canal Street and Bowery. The 50-year-old driver, the only person on the bus at the time, remained on the scene and was given a summons for failure to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk.

Deadline for FEMA Aid Near
FEMA has developed a checklist to help Hurricane Sandy survivors rebuild smarter, stronger and safer so their homes are protected in future storms. Key points of the checklist include: Know your risk, develop a plan, finalize the plan, get insurance. This checklist can be downloaded at fema.gov/SandyNY.

State and federal officials encourage anyone affected by the disaster to register for assistance by calling toll-free 800-621-FEMA (3362) or TTY 800-462-7585. If you use 711 or Video Relay Service (VRS), call 800-621-3362.

Register online anytime at DisasterAssistance.gov. Visit m.fema.gov on your mobile phone or download the FEMA app on your smartphone or tablet. Multilingual operators are available, and for information on programs in multiple languages, visit www.fema.gov/all-languages.

For more information on New York’s disaster recovery, visit:

Disaster Distress Helpline: 1-800-985-5990

DRC Locator: www.FEMA.gov/disaster-recovery-centers

DUA: www.labor.ny.gov/ui/claimantinfo/disaster-unemployment-assistance.shtm

Free Legal Assistance: 1-800-310-7029

NY State Job Bank: www.newyork.us.jobs

STEP Program (Nassau County): 1-888-684-4267

STEP Program (Suffolk): 211

Rapid Repair (NYC): 311

Rental Resource (Portal): http://asd.fema.gov/inter/hportal/home.htm

Compiled by Megan Bungeroth & Jessica Mastronardi

David Garza worked with Henry Street Settlement team to keep food and assistance flowing in the wake of the storm

by Emily Johnson

In the first days after Hurricane Sandy, thousands in downtown Manhattan were stranded in cold, dark apartments. FEMA, flush with disaster relief funds, had the resources to send a truck with 22,000 much-needed meals to the Lower East Side.

But when it came to actually getting that food into the mouths of hungry New Yorkers, the agency looked to a local organization that has spent more than a century getting to know the neighborhood from the ground up.

“We realized the value of our Meals on Wheels distribution routes,” said David Garza, the executive director of Henry Street Settlement, a nonprofit social service agency that has served the Lower East Side since the late 1800s. “We are a coordinating entity that distributes 1,200 meals a day to seniors, so quite literally we could do that work in the dark.”

And they did. Working by candlelight and flashlight and relying on smartphones and social media to coordinate volunteers in the absence of power and Wi-Fi, Garza and his Henry Street team oversaw an exhaustive door-to-door relief effort. They printed out maps and mobilized a brigade of volunteers on bicycles to canvas each building and follow up with food deliveries.

“Obviously the most severe challenge was the power outage,” Garza said. “The LES is a vertical area. People being trapped in buildings was the obvious and immediate concern. So we focused on identifying where and who needed supplies—for example, we’d get a tweet saying, ‘I have an old relative stuck in this apartment, can you help?’”

In many ways, the relief effort was not much of a departure from business as usual for Henry Street Settlement, which runs residential facilities, assists with job placement and offers senior services and youth programs to the largely low-income community. But Garza had never before encountered this level of need.

“People here always live on the precipice of poverty,” Garza said. “But what the storm has done is intensify that so they have to choose between food and rent. I was overwhelmed a couple of times. At one point literally right in front of Henry Street where we were distributing food … people were civil, but the need was palpable as lines formed. That really hit home. How incessant the need was.

It really struck me, ‘Thank God we’re here, what would they be doing?’”

During the blackout, Garza drove into the city daily at 5:30 a.m. to beat the HOV lane restrictions and stayed well into the evening. He was in regular phone communication with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to articulate what steps needed to be taken.

The speaker, who nominated Garza for the OTTY Award along with Chris Kui of Asian Americans for Equality, called the men “passionate, hard-working, organized members of the community” and credited them with saving lives.

“As soon as the storm hit, David was in immediate contact with my office,” Silver said. “He mobilized volunteers. He mobilized trucks to pick up FEMA supplies, he also had volunteers knock on doors and the National Guard deliver food supplies, meals and water.”

When the power finally came back on, Garza said, it brought a memorable end to what for many had become paralyzing uncertainty.

“You would think your local team won the Super Bowl,” he said, smiling. “You could hear it out in the street. It was emotional, because it had been palpable that we were in crisis. That nor’easter was bearing down. It was getting dangerous.”

With the immediate crisis behind them, Henry Street Settlement is gearing its efforts to more long-term recovery efforts like counseling and cash assistance.

“The silver lining for me and for Henry Street is really the performance of our staff and the way we came together as community,” Garza said. “People forget the value of collaboration. It’s literally our founding principle. It’s comforting to know that 121 years later, that’s what it’s still all about.”

Hurricane Sandy has long since passed, but concern remains over lasting environmental hazards

Though the waters have receded after Hurricane Sandy, many downtown residents may be facing a yet-unseen but potentially hazardous problem as a result of the severe flooding. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who represents Lower Manhattan communities hit especially hard by the storm, has expressed concern over what he predicts will be a serious mold and contaminant problem in homes and workplaces that found themselves in the flood zone.

“We must not repeat the same mistakes of 9/11 by leaving people to their own devices to clean up complex toxins without proper guidance or assistance from the federal government,” Nadler said in a statement, urging federal oversight of mold and toxin cleanup following the storm.

Nadler has contacted both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to insist that comprehensive testing for mold and toxins be conducted in homes and workplaces affected by the storm.

David Frome, owner of the Air Cleaner Store and an expert in mold and toxins, said Nadler’s concern is justified.

“Sandy’s floods released toxic chemicals and biologic waste into the water,” said Frome. “Sheetrock and carpeting that was soaked by the storm’s water should be treated as hazardous waste. Removing it safely needs to be our first priority.”

Frome said everyone who experienced flooding is at risk for mold and mold spore exposure, which is “perhaps the largest of the immediate health problems.”

“The Federal government has not established safe levels of mold exposure,” Frome explained. “Each person has a different sensitivity. Some people can be exposed to high concentrations of mold without effect; others can develop a range of symptoms.”

According to Howland “Howdy” Russell, the spokesperson for Paul Davis National, a cleanup service that specializes in natural disasters, the complex cleanup process is already under way in badly affected areas of New York, where the group had been deployed following the storm.

“It’s quite a challenge, as the buildings are filled with sand, mud and debris,” Russell said. “A key priority is to contain and control any microbial growth right away, ensuring a healthy and safe environment for the property owners and families.”

Others insist there’s no reason for New Yorkers to panic about the issue. Ron Alford, a crisis management and recovery coach whose official website says he has “spent his lifetime helping other people in a crisis,” believes the issue of mold is exaggerated as a money-making scheme.

“The mold, asbestos, lead issues are overblown and are in my opinion scare tactics that the new mold industry uses to scare people out of their money,” Alford said.

“There is not one active kitchen or bathroom in NYC that does not have some form of mold,” he added.

While Alford believes the mold-related fear-mongering is hyperbolized in the wake of Sandy, he said he does not feel qualified to comment on the toxic after-effects of 9/11.

Bob Carlson, who has taught mold remediation for years and helped draft a textbook on the subject, echoed Alford, saying the important thing is not to overreact to the situation.

“People freak out when they don’t need to, and miss the insidious hazards that may be lurking,” said Carlson.

“There are many thousands of species of mold, and they come in all colors,” he said. “Aspergillus floats in the air easily, and is one of the most common genera of mold out there.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most people breathe this mold’s spores on a regular basis.

Carlson said with some of the most dangerous molds, you would have to go out of your way to have them be of any consequence to your health.

His analysis of some of the unpredictable aspects of the environmental impact, however, was a bit on the ominous side.

“As far as toxins go, after disasters all kinds of stuff happens,” Carlson said. “Underground storage tanks pop out of the ground, aboveground tanks collapse, pipelines rupture, 55-gallon drums go floating downstream—you name it.”

Photo by Ross Terelle, Megacast News

“Looks like food’s not the problem in Staten Island,” I say. Photographer Ross Terelle and I walk through dark streets lined with great mounds of garbage that used to be people’s lives. It’s a week after Hurricane Sandy hit. Most of the people we’ve met along the way have been trying to give food to us and to each other: “You guys need some hot coffee?” “We got pasta, you guys hungry? You seen anybody who needs some hot food?” “Pizza anybody? It’s still kinda warm.”

We pass a man standing in the doorway of a house that God must have punched, on Hunter Avenue. I ask him what happened and his story spills out in Spanish-inflected English—a messy narrative interrupted from time to time by people begging to give us food. His name is Alfredo Zapata. During Irene last year, the water level only rose a couple of feet, so he decided to stick it out. He put boots on and sloshed through knee-high water with his neighbor, surveying, protecting his house from the thieves who work disaster areas. This year they did the same but the results were different. Zapata and his neighbor barely made it to his house. They shut the door and then watched in terror as the water surged through his neighborhood. Wave after wave—he called them tsunamis—brought the water to within six inches of his ceiling, where it stagnated for a day, leaving a brown ring of grime to mark an astonishing high water mark.

“That’s got to be twelve feet,” says Terelle.

“At least,” I say.

Zapata invites us in. His house is empty; he lost everything. The floor is a layer of brown filth and foam, the walls are grimy, the framing shows through where the drywall has crumbled away, and the walls that remains are soft to the touch. The smell of mold and rot is overpowering. A young couple comes to the door and poke their heads in. “We have hot coffee and hot chocolate. Anybody?”

Zapata graciously declines and sends them on their way. When they are gone, he points to a green sticker on the door. An inspector came and told him his house was habitable. “He looked in and said, ‘Uh, well, you can live here.’” He imitates the inspector’s voice with a generous dose of idiot. “’Well, maybe dry it and you can sleep here. I’m going to put a green sticker on your door saying you can live here.’ Come on! You think a child could live here?” Terelle and I shake our heads. He snaps pictures. I don’t think a prisoner should live in this place.

“This is the same story for all my neighbors,” says Zapata. “They’re complaining. They say the government forgot us. They’re helping Long Island, Brooklyn, Manhattan. This is not Staten Island, this is Forgotten Island.” In the distance a sound like the Muslim call to prayer, but muffled, echos through the neighborhood. It’s a truck with a bullhorn: “We…have…food. We…have…water.” “We…have…food. We…have…water.” It could be something official—NYPD, Red Cross, FEMA—or it could be a local church or a youth group or volunteer firefighters or bunch of friends who feel guilty for being warm. The Occupy movement has been ferrying food and supplies to the hardest hit areas. But nobody has come by handing out lawyers or a warm place for Zapata’s family to live. I imagine he would line up for that truck.

He tells us some of the Staten Island deaths occurred within a stone’s throw of his house. The neighbor who died trying to save her dog. Two children drowned down the road. A couple in the house on the corner. And there could be more. He worries about the illegals hiding from the authorities; people waiting in the dark, afraid to light candles or turn on generators for fear of being expelled from Forgotten Island. We thank Zapata and wish him luck—both come out hollow—and leave him standing in his doorway thanking-but-no-thanking people, waiting for his insurance company to call him back. Back on the street, we walk gingerly around piles of busted dreams towards the safety of the Midland Beach Distribution Center.

The headquarters of Nazareth Housing, at 206 E. Fourth St., narrowly avoided major damage. Michael Callaghan, executive director of the nonprofit group that works on housing rights and homelessness prevention, said that now they’re frenetically coordinating donated supplies and volunteers.

“I think the biggest problem is heat,” said Callaghan. “There is still public housing that doesn’t have electricity and heat. They’re not letting people go in and see how the residents are because they don’t want to be sued.”

He said that volunteers have been routing incoming supplies to some of the hardest-hit areas of the outer boroughs, like the Rockaways in Queens and Coney Island in Brooklyn, but they’re also still concerned about local downtown residents.

At the Hester Street offices of CAAAV, a pan-Asian community-based organization, executive director Helena Wong said that their role in helping has evolved day to day since Sandy struck.

“Every day has been a little bit different, we started off just providing a way for people to charge their phones and handing out what donations were coming in,” Wong said. “When FEMA came, the next day we started to go into buildings and prioritize the seniors and folks who have trouble getting around.”

Wong said that they’re now using their offices primarily as a donation drop-off center while trying to work with local residents who haven’t been able to get in touch with their landlords in order to get their boilers switched on.

Some organizations have had to overcome their own major hurdles in order to help. At GOLES (Good Old Lower East Side), a neighborhood housing and preservation organization, their office at 171 Ave. B was in evacuation Zone A and is still without functioning phone lines or heat.

Damaris Reyes, the executive director, said that she and most of her staff also live in the flood zone, but that they still “managed to coordinate a massive relief effort with approximately 3,000 volunteers and thousands of donations.”

This week, staffers corralled volunteers to bring food, water, flashlights, batteries and information to seniors and disabled people who were trapped on high floors of buildings without power.

“About 50 percent of the residents don’t have heat and hot water, about 20 buildings still don’t have electricity, and most folks don’t have working phone lines,” Reyes said.

At the Bowery Mission, their shelter has been operating at over three times its normal capacity, housing over 150 people, and they kept hot meals coming all through the power outage with a donated generator and a mass of extension cords.

“We were the only lights on the Bowery for a few nights there,” said James Winans, the director of development.

They’ve received an outpouring of support and have been also operating a mobile kitchen on Avenue D between Fourth and Fifth streets, giving out hot meals. Winans said that while they’re focusing on how to help Sandy victims in the immediate future, he’s also concerned about facing the holiday season with depleted resources.

“This is a critical time of year for us any year, because we always do a significant weeklong outreach during the week of Thanksgiving and typically serve about 5,000 people,” Winans said.

He’s confident, though, that downtown residents will step up to fill in the gaps in resources. Helena Wong said that she saw firsthand how important it is to have local, tapped-in neighbors helping after a disaster, because they can often get straight to work, where larger organizations are more cumbersome.

“The Red Cross, the agency that is most known for disaster relief, was coming to us to know what to do,” Wong said. “Local organizations really know the community and should be supported to do the work that we do best.”

Twitter:

•  @FEMA
•  @RedCross
•  @RedCrossNY
•  @ConEdison

• FEMA.gov/Sandy
•  NYC.gov 
•  RedCross.org 
•  New York Times N.Y. Region
•  Huffington Post’s Live Blog
•  Gothamist