We're coming up on almost three weeks since Hurricane Sandy pummeled the city with storm surges and massive flooding, leaving behind widespread power outages, transit woes, housing destruction and more problems we're going to be dealing with for a long time to come. Below, a roundup of the latest Sandy-related news, from the freeloaders at Sandy donation centers to Rockaways sewage to Park Slope parking woes.
- There are still around 33 schools that remain severely damaged because of Sandy, and students in those schools have had their lives doubly-upended as a result: “We’re concerned,” said Jennifer Izzo, a guidance counselor at the Rockaway Park High School for Environmental Sustainability. “We still can’t find some of them.”
- Sandy drove the number of people seeking unemployment benefits up to a seasonally adjusted 439,000 last week, the highest level in 18 months.
- As if things weren't already bad enough in the Rockaways, more than 50 million gallons of waste has flowed into the water since the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant was damaged in the storm.
- According to NBC, strangers who weren't affected by Sandy and don't even live near devastated areas have been turning up at donation centers taking advantage of their goodwill: "People are trying to abuse this."
- Homeowners who have been having trouble getting help from insurers and the feds can now get free legal advice at Brooklyn Borough Hall from a group of volunteer lawyers.
- Mobile ATMs are being brought to the Rockaways because of an ATM shortage.
- More than 15,000 people still don't have heat or hot water.
- Park Slope residents are upset that alternate-side parking has been suspended in the neighborhood post-Sandy, because Park Slope residents can never be happy.
- Occupy Sandy have brought together volunteer doctors, nurses and social workers to provide some much needed medical care to the Rockaways.
- Some good news: the gas crisis is almost over! Let's have a Zoolander-style gas fight to celebrate!
