The mother grabbed her two boys and
fled their home filling with water, hoping to outrun Superstorm Sandy.
But Glenda Moore
and her SUV were no match for the epic storm. Moore's Ford Explorer stalled in
the rising tide, and the rushing waters snatched 2-year-old Brandon and
4-year-old Connor from her arms as they tried to escape.
The youngsters'
bodies were recovered from a marsh Thursday — the latest, most gut-wrenching
blow in New York's Staten Island, an isolated city borough hard-hit by the
storm and yet, residents say, largely forgotten by federal officials assessing
damage of the monster storm that has killed more than 90 people in 10 states.
"Terrible,
absolutely terrible," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said as he
announced the boys' bodies had been found on the third day of a search that
included police divers and sniffer dogs. "It just compounds all the tragic
aspects of this horrific event."
The heartbreaking
discovery came as residents and public officials complained that help has been
frustratingly slow to arrive on stricken Staten Island, where 19 have been
killed — nearly half the death toll of all of New York City.
Garbage is piling
up, a stench hangs in the air and mud-caked mattresses and couches line the
streets. Residents are sifting through the remains of their homes, searching
for anything that can be salvaged.
"We have
hundreds of people in shelters," said James Molinaro, the borough's
president. "Many of them, when the shelters close, have nowhere to go
because their homes are destroyed. These are not homeless people. They're
homeless now."
Molinaro
complained the American Red Cross "is nowhere to be found" — and some
residents questioned what they called the lack of a response by government
disaster relief agencies. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and
Federal Emergency Management Agency Deputy Administrator Richard Serino planned
to tour the island on Friday.
Four days after
Sandy lashed the East Coast with high winds and a huge storm surge, frustration
mounted across New York City and well beyond as millions of people remained without
power and motorists lined up for hours at gas stations in New Jersey and New
York. Yet there were hopeful signs that life would soon begin to return to
something approaching normal.
Consolidated
Edison, the power company serving New York, said electricity should be restored
by Saturday to customers in Manhattan and to homes and offices served by
underground power lines in Brooklyn. More subway and rail lines were expected
to open Friday, including Amtrak' New York to Boston route on the Northeast Corridor.
But the prospect
of better times ahead did little to mollify residents who spent another day and
night in the dark.
"It's too
much. You're in your house. You're freezing," said Geraldine Giordano, 82,
a lifelong resident of the West Village. Near her home, city employees had set
up a sink where residents could get fresh water, if they needed it. There were
few takers. "Nobody wants to drink that water," Giordano said.
"Everybody's
tired of it already," added Rosemarie Zurlo, a makeup artist who once worked
on Woody Allen movies. She said she planned to temporarily abandon her
powerless, unheated apartment in the West Village to stay with her sister in
Brooklyn. "I'm leaving because I'm freezing. My apartment is ice
cold."
There was
increasing concern about the outage's impact on elderly residents. Community
groups have been going door-to-door on the upper floors of darkened Manhattan
apartment buildings, and city workers and volunteer in hard-hit Newark, N.J.,
delivered meals to seniors and others stuck in their buildings.
"It's been
mostly older folks who aren't able to get out," said Monique George of
Manhattan-based Community Voices Heard. "In some cases, they hadn't talked
to folks in a few days. They haven't even seen anybody because the neighbors evacuated.
They're actually happy that folks are checking, happy to see another person. To
not see someone for a few days, in this city, it's kind of weird."
Along the
devastated Jersey Shore and New York's beachfront communities, a lack of
electricity was the least of anyone's worries.
Residents were
allowed back in their neighborhoods Thursday for the first time since Sandy
made landfall Monday night. Some were relieved to find only minor damage, but
many others were wiped out. "A lot of tears are being shed today,"
said Dennis Cucci, whose home near the ocean in Point Pleasant Beach sustained
heavy damage. "It's absolutely mind-boggling."
After touring a
flood-ravaged area of northeastern New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie said it was
time to act, not mourn.
"We're in
the 'triage and attack phase' of the storm, so we can restore power, reopen
schools, get public transportation back online and allow people to return to
their homes if they've been displaced," he said.
In Staten Island,
police recounted Glenda Moore's fruitless struggle to save her children.
Kelly said the
39-year-old mother "was totally, completely distraught" after she
lost her grip on her sons shortly after 6 p.m. Monday. In a panic, she climbed
fences and went door-to-door looking in vain for help in a neighborhood that
was presumably largely abandoned in the face of the storm.
She eventually
gave up, spending the night trying to shield herself from the storm on the
front porch of an empty home.
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