SANDY!

There have been warnings. There have been the alarm bells going off in everyone’s head. They continued to grow louder when Irene hit last year, closing down subway stations while water rushed into Lower Manhatten. But this Monday, when New Yorkers awoke to submerged neighborhoods and drowned electrical lines, officials took their first tentative steps. They took their first tentative steps to considering major infrastructure changes that could protect the fragile shores from disastrous damage.

         The biggest fear these officials have is that now that the storm is over, people will simply move on. The storm is over, electrical lines have been repaired, power is restored, damage fixed and New Yorkers have gone back to their daily routine, storm mostly forgotten, ready to get on with their lives. It is a fear to any environmentalist that the public will forget this storm. It definitely has to do with people polluting, and for people to move on and not consider this catastrophe as possibly their fault is devastating.

         Another problem is with all the cleaning up to do, people think about that first before any environmental thing. Mayor Bloomberg said he was “too busy getting the city running to think about what’s next”. People are too busy with community service or making sure loved ones are okay to even consider what happens next. This is a major issue.

         We need to get our act together and figure this out. We can no longer blame others for this. Everyone is to blame. And we need to recognize that.