President Photo-Op Goes AWOL as Lower Manhattan and Staten Island Descend Into Chaos

 Doug Ross

VERBATIM

Through Gothamist, via Ace and Hot Air, we get a picture of a Manhattan below 38th Street that is nearing the onset of a humanitarian disaster. Jonathan Maimon made a 5-hour, 12-mile run through some of the devastated areas and what he saw is... well, unbelievable.

1) Virtually every retailer, restaurant and grocery store south of 38th street is CLOSED. This is in an area covering 8 square miles. I only observed a handful of bodegas in Soho and the East Village, along with Ben’s Pizza on W3rd and MacDougal serving customers. Whole Foods Union Square had a sign reading “because there is no electricity, we cannot open.” There is no food, other than what you have in your refrigerator.

2) To that point, there are close to 400,000 people living below 38th street without power. The mayor earlier said it could be 3 days without power; some Con Ed guys I spoke with in the East Village think it could be longer. Nobody knows.

3) No working traffic lights in this region (drivers are generally being cautious and appropriately yielding to pedestrians). Apartment stairwells are pitch black. High rises have no elevator access...

5) There is no running water or flushing toilets for people living in the Jacob Riis Houses and surrounding NYCHA buildings on the Lower East Side. In my estimate, this is roughly 20,000 people. One family I spoke with is packing their bags and moving to Brooklyn until services are restored. But it did not appear that all residents were evacuating, even as their toilets did not flush.

6) I did not witness a single Red Cross Truck or FEMA Vehicle or in lower Manhattan. Recall the assistance these agencies provided after 9/11 - this is NOT HAPPENING. There are bound to be hundreds of elderly people, rich and poor, who live on the upper floors of buildings with elevators that are now disabled. IF POWER IS NOT RESTORED, THIS WILL MOVE FROM BEING AN ECONOMIC DISASTER TO A HUMANITARIAN DISASTER.

Where's President Photo-Op and his Bomber Jacket, I mean, besides his jetting to his usual Vegas fundraisers and speechifying at campaign stops while hawking a Republican "War on Women"?

Where's Mayor Bloomturd, aside from moving giant generators into Central Park to power the NYC Marathon, hosting the Brooklyn Nets NBA game, and banning 16-oz. colas, that is?

The real "War on Women" (and children, and the elderly, and the infirm) is occurring in the Northeast, as President Training Wheels parties on, oblivious to the unfolding catastrophe as he was to the disaster in Benghazi.