The boardwalk near the Arverne East site prior to superstorm Sandy.  FAR ROC

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's commitment to sticking with the waterfront following superstorm Sandy will be tested as the city tries to develop a roughly 80-acre site with more than 1,000 new housing units in Far Rockaway, one of the worst-hit areas.

The city, which owns the Arverne East site, and developers on Tuesday announced a design competition for architects, engineers, landscapers and urban planners. They are being asked to come up with ideas about how to develop a sustainable waterfront community that will be resilient in the face of future storms.

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nj.com - by Eugene Paik - April 4, 2013

The struggle to work out how, or whether, to put things back together

economist.com - March 16, 2013

Many of the homes in this Staten Island neighbourhood were destroyed or badly damaged by Sandy, a “superstorm” which struck in October.  Four and a half months after the storm, some houses in southern and eastern Staten Island are still marked with red tags, meaning they are unsafe to enter. People are wondering whether they should just abandon them, or rebuild; and, if they can rebuild, how and at what cost.

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submitted by Samuel Bendett

statenislandlifestyle.com - April 11, 2013

On March 8th, 2013, hundreds of people attended the Superstorm Sandy Forum that was held at the College of Staten Island. The reason for this forum was to educate the public on the following topics: the nature of hurricanes, protection from hurricanes, risks associated with flooding, zoning and land use issues, social science,  financial impact, recovery, protection of natural resources and building codes. The forum lasted over 6 hours and included representatives from the federal, state, city, and local entities, as well as leading scientists, business people, and educators from around the world.

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Superstorm Sandy Forum
http://www.csi.cuny.edu/sandyforum/resource_kit.html

submitted by Albert Gomez

journalism.org

For millions who lost power but could still access the internet on mobile devices, Twitter served as a critical lifeline throughout the disaster that struck on October 29. At least a few news operations, such as Huffington Post and the aggregator BuzzFeed saw their servers go down and turned to Twitter and other social media to deliver reports.

According to Twitter, people sent more than 20 million tweets about the storm from October 27 through November 1.

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propertycasualty360.com - March 14th, 2013 - Arthur D. Postal

A bill in the House introduced by New York State representatives, would extend the grace period for flood-insurance-premium increases for Superstorm Sandy victims.

The legislation was introduced as information became available that the cost of Sandy to the National Flood Insurance Program will be in the neighborhood of $7 billion.

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials have not responded to repeated requests over the last several days, but sources with knowledge of the costs to the program says Sandy flood claims have totaled about $6 billion so far, with projections to go to maybe $7 billion.

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                           (LINKS TO STUDY ABSTRACT AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ARE BELOW)

Scientists look at an ice core from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide coring site.  Credit: Thomas Bauska, OSU

CNN - by Ben Brumfield - March 8, 2013

Global warming has propelled Earth's climate from one of its coldest decades since the last ice age to one of its hottest -- in just one century.

A heat spike like this has never happened before, at least not in the last 11,300 years, said climatologist Shaun Marcott, who worked on a new study on global temperatures going back that far.

"If any period in time had a sustained temperature change similar to what we have today, we would have certainly seen that in our record," he said.

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Study Abstract - A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198.abstract

Wednesday, March 13, 2013 By SARAH MASLIN NIR POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Mar 03, 2013

NEW YORK » There were the usual caps dotted with shamrocks; bunting in the green, white and orange of the Irish flag; and the nasal hum of bagpipes. While some of the bands marching in the Rockaways on Saturday were from schools that had been flooded out by Hurricane Sandy and some of the spectators watching from the sidewalks were still living in temporary quarters because their homes were either badly damaged or destroyed, the Queens County St. Patrick's Day Parade seemed to make a special effort to hew to its nearly four decades of tradition.

Yet evidence of the storm's devastation and the peninsula's painful struggles to recover and rebuild just over four months on were inescapable. Green-clad marchers shouted for new jetties to be built, packs of relief workers marched between step dancers and fire trucks, and all along the parade route were the scarred husks of local landmarks consumed by flames on the night of the hurricane.

Russell Gordon, a homeowner in Oakwood Beach, Staten Island, who is eager to take advantage of Governor Cuomo's Sandy buy-out plan (Matthew Schuerman/WNYC)

submitted by Boris Suchkov

Could Lead to Rebuilding on Flood Plain Even After Homeowner Sells Out

wnyc.org - by Matthew Schuerman - March 4, 2013

Weeks after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed buying out homeowners in flood-prone areas, the Bloomberg administration is indicating that it will offer a similar program. But the mayor’s program could differ in one significant way: the properties the city acquires could be turned over to someone else to be developed again.

In testimony at a City Council committee hearing Feb. 26, Brad Gair, the director of the city’s housing recovery office, said the Bloomberg administration is working on its own buyout program using federal Community Development Block Grant funding, $1.8 billion of which has been earmarked for the city so far. . . But he added the city’s plan may not stipulate that the acquired properties be turned into open space.

Sharon Griffiths of the the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority said, "We are excited to work with Staten Island to help you become green."  Advance File Photo

submitted by Albert Gomez

silive.com - by Tracey Porpora - March 4, 2013

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - The state has partnered with a not-for-profit group to restore energy efficiency to eligible low-income Staten Island homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy.

While some homeowners have started - and in some cases finished - repairing their homes, many others are still living with severely damaged basements, eroded pipes and waterlogged walls.

Now, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority's (NYSERDA) EmPower New York program has enlisted the Community Environmental Center (CEC), a Queens nonprofit that brings energy efficiency to New York City residents, to assist with post-Sandy relief efforts for low-income homeowners in storm-battered areas in the city, including Staten Island.

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Submited by Peter Gudaitis

03/07/2013 04:39 PM EST 

NEW YORK – The Federal Emergency Management Agency, at the request of the State of New York, has approved a 14-day extension to the Transitional Sheltering Assistance (TSA) program, which allows eligible survivors from Hurricane Sandy who cannot return to their homes to stay in participating hotels.

The new checkout date for those in the TSA program is March 24, 2013. FEMA is calling applicants eligible for the extension to notify them of the new checkout date.

Peter B. Gudaitis, M.Div.

Submitted by Brett Scudder