FEMA | Superstorm Research Lab

Sep 9

Interview with new resident of the Rockaways

"If you were someone who rented, or someone didn't have, who didn't work, or didn't have much, you were actually cared for, but if you actually did work, and you did, you know, have insurance, it seemed like things were, didn't necessarily work in your favor. So it's almost like, it really, it almost didn't pay to be a hard working person....because we were working, we actually lost assistance because we had flood insurance, we had homeowner's insurance, we worked, and it was because of all that, it seemed like we were limited to any assistance we could get."

Aug 17

Interview with Carlos Menchaca, liaison to Speaker Christine Quinn

"It took two weeks for full earnest visibility from the government. The trailers started showing up and you saw FEMA in a larger way. They trickled in for sure but their ambitions and their plug into the community was not where I expected them to be. And their nimbleness is clearly not at all possible. So I would say in two weeks we finally saw some support where the first two weeks we were really battling it out as a team of volunteers. And some of the liaisons through the government were really real major government institutional support. What you also saw were people coming out of the woodwork with things that were very important. Like somebody in the community owned a warehouse near the neighborhood, instantly everyone got that information and sent everything that was coming in to that warehouse. So that became a warehouse station, the distribution spots, the churches started coming online as distribution sites happily. And so those things were all in place with volunteers and private help which is a great feeling but it wasn’t a great feeling when two weeks later the ambulances finally show up to the public housing. And we had already created a popup medical clinic in one of our locations that were servicing 200 plus home bound senior citizens and non senior citizens but mostly senior citizens. And we were doing this all within our own means."

Jul 31

Interview with resident of Coney Island

"Well I’m not particularly close to anyone in my building even though I’ve been here 12 years there’s one woman who lives across from me who I consider like a mother. I look out for her but when the storm happened we started looking out for each other. We were like what do you need, you need water, you need this, whatever we had somebody could have. I was giving people money, I saw people who lived on the first floor, if I had an extra $5 or $10 I’d give it to them, they needed something to eat I would give it to them because I had money so I didn’t mind."

Jul 31

Interview with resident of Coxsackie, New York

"You know, to be subjected to silly questions, how high was the water, you know, has do you have flood insurance, knowing full well that's it a not flood area. No one has flood insurance. To me those things are ridiculous and it makes you feel helpless because A, this is the government that you're paying money into, and it's not free, you know. I'm a happy payer. I'm paying into this. I paid, you know, federal taxes, state taxes, city taxes, yada yada yada, and when it's time for me to actually get aid, well, the government I have to answer 20 million questions, you know, I've done something as if the storm is my fault."

Jul 24

Interview with 78 year old resident of Coney Island

"As a result of the hurricane we had cracks in the walls. FEMA didn’t pay too much attention to that, they said it’s personal, but it’s Projects here so they (management of building) need to take care of it and FEMA isn’t responsible. And we were registered and my daughter signed us up."

Jul 24

Interview with James Rose, Occupy Sandy volunteer

"And then I was asked what can I do and they had orientation so I went -- there’s this one guy that was there that told us if you’re going to go out into the field this is the way you should behave because these people where they live has been destroyed and be considerate and think about them and don’t take pictures, be considerate this is their space, you’re coming there to help them not -- it’s what do they need you know? Not like what you want to do. Yeah it was pretty cool. One guy from comms came down and said to my group of people that I was going through the orientation with and he said "does anybody here have a cell phone or a laptop" and I said "I have a cell phone" and he’s like "can you come with me we need someone to answer the hotline.""

Jul 24

Interview with Edward Malave, New Church International, Coney Island

"We have the Verrazano Center Rotary Club is working with us. We have the Red Cross was able to give us a couple -- a truck full of assistants. City Harvest is going to work with us also bringing us material and food, a lot of food for the families. Last -- we have been providing food at an average of 100 families per day. And we do give on a weekend, you know like, on a Saturday easily we could give 250, 300 boxes of food to the people. And interestingly enough people are still learning that we are here so we are still getting a lot of new people that didn’t know that we were here."