In The Sulky Forum
General Category => General Harness Racing Discussion => Topic started by: jordanjacob on November 12, 2012, 02:33:03 PM
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most of the town has electricity
many traffic lights not working but it does make driving a lot more entertaining
in front of 90% of the homes are hundreds of pounds of flood or sewer damaged belongings each
most cars were destroyed
little food in town except what they give away
no supermarkets open
National Guard giving away cases of MRE's, self heating meals, delicious fox hole treats
many homes and businesses were destroyed including our beloved boardwalk but no storm no matter how devastating can crush the spirit of the people still left here
I wish they had a bike race on what's left of the boardwalk with a $20,000 first place prize for the person who finishes the race without any broken bones
it is one hell of an obstacle course, beach benches facing in every direction, 6 foot drops, 8 foot hills and wood in each direction with holes in places least expected
the toughest aspect here is getting insurance adjusters to review the damage so we can hope to find contractors available who are all swamped with waiting customers
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Damn JJ, that sucks! thumbsdown
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Sorry to hear that, JJ. Wishing you only the best.
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Hopefully the worst of it is over. I know there is a long road ahead to get back to normal. Are your cars OK? Big article in the Chicago Trib today about how used and new car prices are going up due to the demand. Also, a warning about used cars that may have been water damaged. Toyota said they lost up to 4,000 new Toyotas, Scions and Lexus cars that were in storage lots in NJ and NY. Hope everything works out. You and your family have suffered enough.
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thanks for the kind words everyone
cars are fine, one was in the garage safe, the other on the higher lawn, too bad, I don't like my wife's car and it was my chance to ditch it
all cars on the street were dead and can't be saved
Art, heard you made it into Rich Gutnick's Winner's Circle photo at Balmoral this past weekend
hope you join him again this weekend at Maywood
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JJ, heard that every home in Belle Harbor has water damage either in their basement or in their living rooms. I imagine some homes in Long Beach are okay as I remember many of them having stairs to front doors.
Funny how they did a story (60 Minutes, I believe) on Belle Harbor in the Irish section & I can only remember the Jewish section where the homes seemed so much bigger.
I assume that you know all about the Public Adjusters. I wouldn't agree to a settlement amount without one, if I were you, which unfortunately I have been before. At least your business is not affected - all you need is your brains & a computer of some sort.
Stay safe - best to you always.
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Hang in there JJ - prayers and well-wishes go out to you and your family.
I recall in an earlier post you stated your son "manned-up". I love to hear that - it means you're doing a good job raising him and should be proud.
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Hang in there JJ - prayers and well-wishes go out to you and your family.
I recall in an earlier post you stated your son "manned-up". I love to hear that - it means you're doing a good job raising him and should be proud.
thumbsup thumbsup thumbsup
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Dolfan,
I'll have all my necessary estimates in writing tomorrow so I'll know completely the insurance amount needed to get whole or close, but am aware insurance companies may try to exclude lots of items in basements and mine suffered huge damage. We got lucky in one respect, we used Benjamin Moore paints and never threw out the cans. We lifted all the new leather furniture on top of the cans and all of it was saved. Insurance adjusters in this case are very picky as they are swamped due to the immense volume and damage.
Tony, my son has been absolutely huge, the whole family has been. To leave every morning for hours in the cold and coming back with as much wood (tree limbs and branches) as possible then cut it 0and break it up. We all lived in the living room, no heat, water, bathrooms, electricity, mail or any services whatsoever. We survived on the remaining food in the house, burned what we could, and stayed as long as we could until the intolerable conditions became too much that we couldn't stay any longer.
My son and I had limited gas and decided to go to Harrisburg as there was no hope here, and we left on Saturday morning last week with the hope our gas supply could get us into deep New Jersey or Pennsylvania where there was gas, and we would've been in huge trouble if we ran out. The lines here were over a mile long.
We left at 3:00am with the promise that if we ran out, one of my friends from Pennsylvania would bring us a filled gas can and get us where ever we ran out.
It's not many people that would promise to run out in the cold with a gas can at 5:00am on a weekend but I've surrounded myself with awesome friends, and that friend also owns Chapter Severn and Market Share, Rich Gutnick.
The hotel gave us early check in at 7:30am as we were temporarily homeless and one of the first things my son said at the Sheraton in Harrisburg when we walked into the room and he flipped on the switch "holy shit Dad, they have light". Yes, I am proud of him, and after being outbid on about 15 horses he took over the bidding duties (there were some amazing looks by the auctioneer when he saw a 14 year old raising his hand) and won several horses. He also smiled for the camera as they took pictures of all the winning bidders and my son also filled out all the paperwork with my USTA number. It was only fitting as he inspected all the horses prior with my trainer and I.
We're getting there and there are plenty of people in worse shape than I am. I am also grateful for another delicious fox hole treat dinner tonight, those fabulous self heating, scrumptious military meals. One day there will be food in this town again, hopefully soon.
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Hang in there JJ - prayers and well-wishes go out to you and your family.
I recall in an earlier post you stated your son "manned-up". I love to hear that - it means you're doing a good job raising him and should be proud.
thumbsup
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Sounds like you and yours are making the best of a terrible situation. Our thoughts and prayers go out to
you, keep your chin up and lets prays things get back to normal asap.
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This is taking much longer than it should. Disgraceful that we have this thing called FEMA, where things get all backed up, disgraceful that some of the power companies have turned away help from other states because they are not unionized, disgraceful that Long Island Power now figures out that their President or CEO blows...
Just pisses me off, knowing that anyone in Long Beach (also a high tax region) or the Rockaways or anywhere else is still without power. Mayors & Governors should be strung up!
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Spot on, Dolfan! 700 electricians with boom trucks drove all the way from Alabama to try to help and were told to go back home because the electrician's union in the area didn't want to give up any of the work. Meanwhile people are cold, hungry, drinking govt water, eating MRE's, and PISSED OFF. I don't blame them. It's been long enough to put up with this incompetence.
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streets littered with garbage, people complaining about those cute furry looking things hanging out around the trash eating their munchies
can't find garbagemen anywhere
biggest complaint I have is I would love to put my home back together but cannot until FEMA (flood insurance) and Allstate adjustors show up to inspect the damage
it's a slow process
if anyone wants some delicious MRE's, those yummy self heating meals my son calls fox hole treats, I have extras and I'm always willing to share
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Spot on, Dolfan! 700 electricians with boom trucks drove all the way from Alabama to try to help and were told to go back home because the electrician's union in the area didn't want to give up any of the work. Meanwhile people are cold, hungry, drinking govt water, eating MRE's, and PISSED OFF. I don't blame them. It's been long enough to put up with this incompetence.
What is the source of the 700 electricians? I have been looking all over for that story.
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please read this through Jeremy
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/fla-utility-union-delayed-crews-for-lipa-1.4205898?qr=1
Fla. utility: Union delayed crews for LIPA
Originally published: November 9, 2012 2:08 PM
Updated: November 9, 2012 10:39 PM
By MARK HARRINGTON mark.harrington@newsday.com
As superstorm Sandy pounded Long Island last week, representatives for the Long Island Power Authority began making mayday calls to repair crews across the nation. But their requests for help came with a footnote, according to one utility group that received a call: Contact the local electrical union first so that imported workers could be signed up as members before they arrived.
With repair work still going on 12 days later and more than 160,000 Long Islanders still without power after Sandy and this week's nor'easter, the contention that LIPA's union leaders required so-called "assent letters" sent to would-be workers early in the restoration has become an issue as ratepayers look for answers about why it's taking so long to get power back.
Barry Moline, executive director of the Florida Municipal Electric Association, said Long Island could have received 125 additional workers from utilities across Florida as soon as two days after the storm if a dispute about the letters had been resolved sooner. He said most of the crews from Florida who were available were nonunion and refused to join Local 1049 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, even if only temporarily. IBEW Local 1049 represents some 2,000 National Grid workers contracted by LIPA.
"To have this contract thrust upon these organizations on short notice is an affront . . ." Moline said. "We said [to IBEW local], 'Why are you doing this?' They said, 'We want them [imported workers] to get a taste of the union so that when they go back home, they want the union.' "
Crews that could have come to Long Island went instead to Pennsylvania, Moline said. "We could have been there on Wednesday, and instead we arrived on Sunday," he said, after the union rescinded the requirement.
LIPA referred questions about the issue to National Grid, the company contracted by LIPA to oversee operations. "Assent letters were not required and that is not National Grid policy," spokeswoman Wendy Ladd said.
The dispute was settled the weekend after the storm hit following intervention by the American Public Power Association, which represents 2,000 municipal utilities across the nation. Nicholas Braden, a spokesman for the association, said although it took several days to resolve, he did not believe it delayed workers from arriving to the region.
Braden said the issue in dispute was that nonunion crews would "have had to pay union dues and stuff . . . It kind of stopped things in their tracks until they could work out the issue."
Braden said it was resolved by elimination of the requirement that they join the union. Crews from several Southern states had issues with the contract, Braden said, including workers from Georgia, Florida and Alabama.
Don Daley, business manager for Local 1049 of the IBEW, said no worker was turned away for refusing to sign the assent letters. "We're all about getting the lights on . . . 1049 has not obstructed anyone from coming."
He said that the money paid into pension and health funds would benefit the workers, not the fund. "That's their money," Daley said. "I think they just make a request to take their money out, and whatever tax laws there are, they get their money."
The assent letter -- if signed -- made out-of-state workers temporary members of the union, who receive Long Island's prevailing wage, regardless of what they received at their home utility. Included in the contract that temporary union members sign, according to a copy of it provided to Newsday: contribution of 22.5 percent of each employee's gross salary to the IBEW annuity fund; payments of $9.75 an hour to the union's health and welfare fund; 3 percent of their gross salary to the union's "craft division skill improvement fund"; 3 percent of each worker's gross salary to the union's National Electrical Benefit Fund; and lesser amounts to other funds.
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Don't worry JJ, I trust but verify. Nothing surprises me about the greed some people have while others are suffering.
The main story that kept popping up in the search results was about a group from Alabama that was only 7 people.
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Don't worry JJ, I trust but verify. Nothing surprises me about the greed some people have while others are suffering.
The main story that kept popping up in the search results was about a group from Alabama that was only 7 people.
Jeremy,
I wouldn't wish living in this town since this storm on my worst enemy.
It was a truly great place to live and now we have lots of issues. I only hope we can get past them sooner rather than later.
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They're draggin' their asses because they just don't care. What's gonna happen? Idiots keep re-electing these scammers, the states, counties & cities have nothing to pay off lawsuits.
Newsday: contribution of 22.5 percent of each employee's gross salary to the IBEW annuity fund; payments of $9.75 an hour to the union's health and welfare fund; 3 percent of their gross salary to the union's "craft division skill improvement fund"; 3 percent of each worker's gross salary to the union's National Electrical Benefit Fund; and lesser amounts to other funds.
That article represents the final insult: screw the people as long as we can get what we want!
I am sitting here just so pissed for people like you JJ, knowing full well that it could certainly be me & probably will be some time soon. It will be in the heat of the South Florida summer, everything around here will smell from rot & those sumptuous meals that they're dropping will be picked up by racoons & lessor looking creatures, carrying diseases worse than rabies. And there are plenty in the Everglades just a mile or two away.
I grew up in Rockaway Beach & have many old friends there & can guarantee you that they are all suffering big time from this storm. I remember, when I was a kid, being told how the "beach met the bay" during Hurricane whatever, probably in the 1950's or 1940's.
This is the third event in just the last 11 years that we never thought we'd see in the U.S.: 9/11, Katrina & now this. We are no better than a third world country. And it seems we are not learning a thing.
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Dolfan,
I just drove through the Rockaway's to drop my son off at hockey in Brooklyn and the conditions there are worse than deplorable. Still no electric but finally a police presence on every block after serious looting.
I will always give credit where it's due and I thank the Long Island Power Authority for all they have done in the past to help make this disaster what it is. Weeks later and still no power for many poorer citizens of our country.
Gino's Pizza in Long Beach tonight, free pizza. Lots of businesses stepped up.
If anyone wants a fox hole meal, I'll gladly mail you one. Now you too can enjoy what we have had to. I can't explain it but my son loves them.
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This should not be happening in the United States. >:(
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My brother inlaw spent alot of time in Louisiana after Katrina, trying to get some help to those folks. He's a union electrician on the communications side, and he felt so sorry for what they were going through. He had to leave his wife & kid for weeks on end, but volunteered anyway. I'm very proud of him.
Some of the pics he posted of the damage were unbelievable. There was stacks of fishing boats and pleasure boats many miles from the gulf. They had to have GPS co-ordinates to even know where to set the poles because everything was gone... couldn't even tell where streets used to be.
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I just drove through the Rockaway's to drop my son off at hockey in Brooklyn and the conditions there are worse than deplorable. Still no electric but finally a police presence on every block after serious looting.
Gino's Pizza in Long Beach tonight, free pizza. Lots of businesses stepped up.
I knew the Rockaways had to be a mess. Like Long Beach there's just no place to hide when the tide comes across Shore Front Pwy.
Just for the hell of it, is Ginos & Zomicks on 20th St in Far Rockaway still there? What about Wavecrest Bakery? I still have bad dreams about that area.
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I knew the Rockaways had to be a mess. Like Long Beach there's just no place to hide when the tide comes across Shore Front Pwy.
Just for the hell of it, is Ginos & Zomicks on 20th St in Far Rockaway still there? What about Wavecrest Bakery? I still have bad dreams about that area.
sorry bud, I can't tell you, I can't go off my route and go through there, in my opinion the area is unsafe without electricity and there was lots of looting
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The area was unsafe WITH electricity! hammerhead1
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I remember in the aftermath of 9/11 they had a memorial ceremony for fallen firefighters, and several were on the dais in dress uniforms. They were warned not to say anything inflammatory that might spark more attacks. One of the firemen with an ethnic Italian name stepped to the microphone and said, "Hey al Qaeda, my name is ***, I live in Rockaway, and you can kiss my ass!" I LOVED IT!
rflmao1 rflmao1 rflmao1 rflmao1
Hope things get better for you asap, JJ. thumbsup
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One of the firemen with an ethnic Italian name stepped to the microphone and said, "Hey al Qaeda, my name is ***, I live in Rockaway, and you can kiss my ass!" I LOVED IT!
Yeah, I loved it too. And I believe he even went as far to say "come get me".
Then 2 months later that commercial jet crashed into that same area in Belle Harbor, killing 5 on the ground & all 260 passengers. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility but that was ruled out by NTSB.
slaphead slaphead
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it's a mess here and I'm confident we're not getting anywhere soon
I don't see any trash pickup and blocks are inundated, mine especially
can't fix homes until inspected by insurance companies (I'm still awaiting multiple inspections) and even then don't know if we can repair as contractors are hard to find and may need further inspection from FEMA to see if qualify for further financial assistance if (when) insurance doesn't come close to paying for work to repair
received a bill for $20,000 for landscaping as lawn had once in a lifetime striped bass and blues fishing right off the porch and salt water ruins anything green
looks like I will save lots of money on watering and gardening next year
I re-sodded this spring and will not do it 2 years in a row
if anyone needs a place for their kids to play football, my former lawn is excellent for it
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You're gonna be just fine JJ. I just saw on the news that (17 days after Sandy hit) Obambi showed up to say he was gonna stay until everything was fixed. He hugged a few people and left.
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You're gonna be just fine JJ. I just saw on the news that (17 days after Sandy hit) Obambi showed up to say he was gonna stay until everything was fixed. He hugged a few people and left.
you are much more optimistic than I am
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you are much more optimistic than I am
You mean he left without fixing everything? 8)
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JJ, what happens in NY State when insurer's go belly up? Do you know?
Florida has statewide back-up coverage. My insurer went BK after Wilma and then returned as a solvent company several years later. But we did get paid.
Here are a few things you can absolutely count on:
1 - Workers will emerge from all sorts of different places.
2 - Other than absolute basics, replacement costs will be 2-3 times what things really cost.
3 - The economy will get a nice boost from this tragedy.
4 - In a few years many of the companies that will be knocking on your door will go out of business so forget about warranties. Here, even businesses that were around for 20 years expired a couple of years after Wilma as the work just dries up completely.
5 - The garbage men will eventually show up.
6 - It's going to take quite a few months, maybe even a year for things to just start looking normal again but you will get there.
Whatever you do, no matter what, don't pay anyone anything up front. Say no till your tongue bleeds. I was the only person anyone heard of who got his roof replaced without a dime up front. And after they f**ked it up the first 2 times, they finally put an undercoat on, making it impossible to leak!
Take lots of pictures, maintain a sense of humor, be 3 times more patient than you ever thought you could be & you will see bright days again. And remind the young ones what it used to look like because they will forget.
I know you are a very smart person & you're no virgin so you'll probably get things in order better than most.
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Dolfan,
It's the levels and dealing with the mess at each level. I have full homeowners but still have not had a representative here after 16 days. I have flood but they probably won't cover most of it. I then can go to FEMA but can't until I finish with the other two.
It's just the fact that the red tape isn't helping. My daughter's best friend ended up displaced and we took her in too. I just need that basement back soon.
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http://www.nbcnewyork.com/video/#!/news/local/Storms-Sand-Broke-Walls--Cinderblocks-in-Long-Beach/179214301
95% of this video is within a block or two of my home
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He hugged a few people and left.
So everything is OK now? Maybe we have to send Amy out there to give out power hugs. We know she can squeeze the s*** out of LVGD.
On a general note---I hate insurance companies. When I had my palatial mansion, the main sewer pipe broke, so no water or toilets could be used. On the same day, my mother-i-law passed, not a good day. I called Allstate. They were having a Christmas party so I couldn't talk to anyone. No call returned. Called again the next day and told them what happened and that I was going to get it fixed ASAP. I did. The bill was higher because they had to bring out a back ho to dig down 8 feet in the frozen ground. Three weeks later Allstate calls. They are sending out an adjuster. Well, the adjuster complains that she can't see the damage. (There are 3 feet of snow on the ground--idiots) I guess I was supposed to have it excavated and live with no water for 3 weeks while they screwed around. They approve a check for about 1/10 the cost. I sent it back and told them to stick it. Took about 5 months for them to actually pay the right amount. Needless to say, no Allstate for me ever since,
Hope you don't have Allstate Insurance JJ!
The devastation shown in that video was shocking. Looks like it was a real nice area--before the storm.
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Hal,
I'm in good hands.
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I have flood but they probably won't cover most of it. I then can go to FEMA but can't until I finish with the other two.
In most cases Flood Insurance is a Gov't program with $100,000 policy limits. It only covers rising waters, which you obviously have but any wind damage or broken windows or facades are not covered by Flood Insurance.
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A friend emailed this link. Wow.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2225112/Superstorm-Sandy-Death-toll-hits-FIFTY-damage-set-50BILLION.html