Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Hurricane Sandy - Bellevue, NYU, and Coler Hospital Evacuations - Political Accountability

Who is politically accountable for the failure of the emergency management plan in response to Hurricane Sandy that lead to infrastructure failure at New York City hospitals ?

Following the infrastructure failure of critical hospitals in New York City because of flooding and storm surge associated with Hurricane Sandy and related power failures, some healthcare activists began to demand answers for the failure of New York City's emergency management planning. The fault does not lie with the doctors and medical staff at the impacted hospitals ; rather, the politicians in charge of the city's emergency management plan must account for this irresponsible and dangerous situation. How could it be that New York City's resources would prioritise reopening business when critical hospitals could be left in the dark ? One activist has posted a new YouTube video requesting political accountability for the dangerous risks posed to public health by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's lack of real emergency planning.

Video Link : http://youtu.be/ggjOOjbTKZs

Background

In the community effort to demand a replacement hospital for St. Vincent's, politicians imposed on the community the burden of participating in a needs assessment to determine if a full-service hospital was required in the Lower West Side of Manhattan.

"The hospital evacuations following the destruction by Hurricane Sandy expose the risks of the Rudin Condo Conversion Plan approved for St. Vincent's Hospital," said Louis Flores, an activist who produced this YouTube video. "New York City needs a Level I Trauma Center and full-service hospital in the Lower West Side for disaster recovery efforts. And New York City needs real resources to improve the infrastructure of all of our hospitals, including Coler Hospital on Roosevelt Island and SUNY Downstate Hospital in Brooklyn."

Hurricane Irene

In 2011, St. Vincent's activists organized a mass civilian trauma event exercise to demonstrate what grassroots community activists described was a major risk to public health : where would sick and injured patients receive emergency and trauma care in the event of a major national disaster under conditions that had created an irresponsible geographic distribution of hospital beds in Manhattan.

See related link : http://thevillager.com/villager_443/traumadrama.html

Hurricane Sandy

In the time leading up to and following the landfall of the effects of Hurricane Sandy, the infrastructure of full-service hospitals on the East Side of Manhattan has failed. Hospital patients were forced to be evacuated from NYU Langone and Bellevue Hospitals.

To Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Speaker Christine Quinn, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, to City Planner Amanda Burden, Brad Hoylman, Bill Rudin, and to the Partnership for New York, where are New Yorkers supposed to go now, in case of a medical emergency ?

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Bloomberg 911 ECTP Denial

Related : Related : Hurricane Sandy - Political Accountability For Hospital Evacuations

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, at this morning's late morning press briefing, denied that the inability of the 911 emergency telephone call system to orderly handle all of the emergencies during Hurricane Sandy contributed to any unnecessary injuries or deaths. Mayor Bloomberg said that calling 911 for help would not have saved a man's life, who died when a tree crashed though his house, leading to destruction that killed the man.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Lower Manhattan Flooded in 1960 After Hurricane Donna

Related : New Hurricane Sandy Danger : Flood-Risk Nursing Homes Told Not To Evacuate

1960 Flooding Photograph Lower Manhattan Hurricane Donna New York City

In 1960, Lower Manhattan was flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Donna. Will the same thing happen to New York City after Hurricane Sandy makes landfall ? The risk of flooding is being compounded by the high tides and the Full Moon on Monday, October 29, 2012.

From The New York Times :

The hurricane center said through the day on Sunday that Hurricane Sandy was “expected to bring life-threatening storm surge flooding to the mid-Atlantic Coast, including Long Island Sound and New York Harbor.”

Gov. Cuomo Forces Mayor Bloomberg To Take Hurricane Sandy Seriously

Related : Related : Hurricane Sandy - Political Accountability For Hospital Evacuations

Blogger and activist Suzannah B. Troy draws attention to the mixed messages about hurricane preparedness and readiness. Ms. Troy questions the ability of the 911 emergency call system here in New York City to handle a major emergency, such as a large-scale natural disaster.

Nobody understands how Mayor Bloomberg can expect city employees can show up to work when there is no mass transit due to the suspensions of services by the MTA New York City Subway system, and during what the National Hurricane Center describes as a "life-threatening" storm.

At 11:30 a.m. Sunday morning, Mayor Bloomberg ordered mandatory evacuations of Zone A areas of New York City, but he is only giving the impacted residents a few hours to find shelter. Has Mayor Bloomberg been sleeping on the job, or was he busy with his new Super PAC ?

Meanwhile, here in Queens, it is evident that the City's sanitation workers were not told to clear the garbage on the streets, to minimize flying objects during the hurricane wind gusts.

Are we heading for a repeat of the way that the Sanitation Department was overwhelmed in the aftermath of the post-Christmas Blizzard of 2010 ?

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Flushing Meadows Corona Park Jilted Again

A hedge fund manager, who was implicated in a controversial scheme involving mortgage investments packaged by Goldman Sachs, has donated $100 million for the preservation and beautification of Central Park, because, in the Manhattan-centric worldview of New Yorkers, it may not matter that Flushing Meadows Corona Park may be destroyed by zone-busting real estate developers.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Bloomberg Invokes Red Scare Against Elizabeth Warren

Mayor Michael Bloomberg called Elizabeth Warren, "God’s gift to regulation." How can any Democrats support Michael Bloomberg, when he throws the Democratic Party under the bus ? Mayor Bloomberg even invoked "socialism" against Ms. Warren and the "U.S.S.R." to spread the typical unfounded Republican fears against Democrats.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Bloomberg starts Super PAC to distort democracy across USA

New York City billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that he would be creating his own “super PAC” to funnel over $10 million in campaign donations to distort elections, much like he funneled money to distort prior elections.

Blogger and artist Suzannah B. Troy posted that Mayor Bloomberg wants to "buy more elections."

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Secret Stop And Frisk Recording - Viral Video

The Nation magazine published a secret recording of a Harlem teenager getting stopped-and-frisked by NYPD. The YouTube video of the recording has now gone viral, with over 500,000 hits.

Read the full story at : Stopped-and-Frisked: 'For Being a F**king Mutt' [VIDEO]

Remember, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn support NYPD Commissioner, who supports the controversial "stop and frisk" policy.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Bloomberg LP Parental Leave Policy

What is the parental leave policy at Bloomberg L.P. ? After the EEOC maternity discrimination case was dismissed, has Bloomberg L.P. gone back to cave man times ?

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

NYPD Freedom of Information Request

I filled out the NYCLU form letter to request any records that the NYPD has on me, and the NYPD has declined to answer my request.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Judge Rules That NYPD Made Illegal Arrests During 2004 GOP Convention

Judge Rules That The Mass Arrests Carried Out By The Bloomberg Administration During The 2004 Republican National Convention Were Illegal

Federal District Court Judge Richard J. Sullivan has ruled that officers with the New York Police Department illegally arrested large numbers of protesters at a demonstration on Fulton Street in Downtown Manhattan during the 2004 Republican National Convention, The New York Times has reported.

Judge Sullivan's ruling faulted the Bloomberg administration for having "lacked the required probable cause because the police were unaware of whether each individual protester had broken the law," The Times reported.

“With this ruling,” said Christopher T. Dunn, a lawyer with the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), “the time has come for the city to put this controversy behind it, to settle the rest of the convention cases, and to make sure that mass arrests never happen again here.”

Mr. Dunn noted that the judge had “emphatically rejected the city’s claim that it could make mass arrests of protesters.”

The NYCLU represents some of the activists, who were arrested.