Johanna Dominique in her apartment on the Rockaway Peninsula. A water stain that appeared when Hurricane Sandy hit, persists across her repaired ceiling. Ángel Franco/The New York Times

nytimes.com - by Sarah Maslin Nir - January 13, 2014

The buildings are offset by the Atlantic, a pastiche of warm tones and cool grays, jutting balconies overlooking tranquil landscaped gardens and million-dollar views. The apartment complex is in the Arverne section of the Rockaway Peninsula; it looks as if it could be Boca Raton, Fla.

But in this cluster of buildings, looks are often deceiving.

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Projects Statewide to Strengthen New York’s Communities Against Extreme Weather

governor.ny.gov - Andrew M. Cuomo - Governor - January 7, 2014

insurancejournal.com - by Andrew G. Simpson - January 7, 2014

The U.S. Senate is expected to take a key vote soon on a bill that would delay some of the flood insurance rate hikes triggered by the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012. . .

. . . The procedural vote on S.1846 was originally planned for Wednesday, but the Senate is still dealing with an extension of federal unemployment benefits, delaying consideration of the flood bill. U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), a major advocate for the bill, told USA Today that  “next week is more realistic” for any vote on the flood bill.

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nyc.gov

OEM OFFERS COLD WEATHER SAFETY TIPS

Seniors, infants, the homeless, and those with chronic medical conditions are at increased risk of health problems from the cold

January 2, 2014 — With a significant snow storm and temperatures expected to be dangerously cold beginning today through Saturday, the New York City Office of Emergency Management (OEM) and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene remind New Yorkers to protect themselves and help others who may be at increased risk of health problems. Homeless individuals not in shelters, people working outdoors, and those in homes or apartments with inadequate heat are most likely to be exposed to dangerous cold. Seniors, infants, people with chronic cardiovascular or lung conditions, people using alcohol or drugs and people with cognitive impairments such as from dementia, serious mental illness or developmental disability are at increased risk.

New Yorkers should take the following precautions: 

Bill de Blasio, right, with his wife and children, was sworn into office at City Hall on Wednesday by former President Bill Clinton.  Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

nytimes.com - by MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM - January 1, 2014

Bill de Blasio, whose fiery populism propelled his rise from obscure neighborhood official to the 109th mayor of New York, was sworn into office on Wednesday, pledging that his ambition for a more humane and equal metropolis would remain undimmed.

In his inaugural address, Mayor de Blasio described social inequality as a “quiet crisis” on a par with the other urban cataclysms of the city’s last half-century, from fiscal collapse to crime waves to terrorist attacks, and said income disparity was a struggle no less urgent to confront.

“We are called to put an end to economic and social inequalities that threaten to unravel the city we love,” he said to about 5,000 people at the ceremony, many beneath blankets on a numbingly cold day.

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Nets of Freedom creating mesh networks. Image: Strelka Institute / Flickr

wired.com - by Primavera De Filippi - January 2, 2014

The internet is weak, yet we keep ignoring this fact. So we see the same thing over and over again, whether it’s because of natural disasters like hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, wars like Syria and Bosnia, deliberate attempts by the government to shut down the internet (most recently in Egypt and Iran), or NSA surveillance.

After Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, several towns were cut off from humanitarian relief because delivering that aid depends on having a reliable communication network. In a country where over 90 percent of the population has access to mobile phones, the implementation of an emergency “mesh” network could have saved lives.

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Watch how geothermal heat pumps heat and cool buildings by concentrating the naturally existing heat contained within the earth -- a clean, reliable, and renewable source of energy.

energy.gov - June 24, 2012

Geothermal heat pumps (GHPs), sometimes referred to as GeoExchange, earth-coupled, ground-source, or water-source heat pumps, have been in use since the late 1940s. They use the constant temperature of the earth as the exchange medium instead of the outside air temperature. This allows the system to reach fairly high efficiencies (300% to 600%) on the coldest winter nights, compared to 175% to 250% for air-source heat pumps on cool days.

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bge.apogee.net

An open-loop, ground-water heat pump, uses a surface or underground water source (such as a lake, river, or well) as the heat source and sink. Well water designs are the most common and seem to be the most cost effective. The well supplies both domestic water and water for the heat pump. Approximately three gallons per minute of well water are needed per ton of cooling capacity.

Ground water source open-loop heat pumps use the same concept as the ground coupled units - for example, in the Midwest the temperature of the earth near the surface and the water in it (aquifer) is typically around 55°F. Water is taken from the ground or surface water (pond, lake, etc.), circulated to the individual heat pumps and the returned to the ground via a disposal well, returned to the lake or pond, or where permitted discharged into a stream or river.

When more units are heating than cooling the circulating water temperature drops prior to disposal. Conversely, when more units are cooling than heating, the circulating water is warmed prior to disposal.

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gigaom.com - by Kevin C. Tofel - November 7, 2012

After 4 days without power thanks to Hurricane Sandy, something arrived today that will help keep my mobile devices fully charged and connected to the web. I backed a Fenix ReadySet on Kickstarter, which is a large battery that charges with an included solar panel.

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http://www.fenixintl.com/

submitted by Debbie Tiamfook

The Peninsula Library branch in Far Rockaway is one of the facilities that received funding in 2012 through the city's participatory budgeting process

nydailynews.com - by Ritchie Torres and Alexa Kasdan - December 8, 2013

Last month, New York City voters selected a new mayor and 21 new members of the City Council and, in January, a new City Council speaker will be selected, ushering in a progressive makeover to City Hall.

As part of this shift, 21 New York City Council members have committed to partake in Participatory Budgeting (PB) in 2014, allowing their constituents to directly decide how to spend millions of public dollars. This will more than double the size of the current PB process, which is now in its third year with nine council members allocating a collective $10 million.

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CLICK HERE - Participatory Budgeting in NYC

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio at a rally before his victory. (Photo: William Alatriste)

submitted by Megan Fliegelman

politicker.com - by Jill Colvin - November 20, 2013

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio announced that 60 prominent backers will join his transition team to select the city’s next mayoral administration.

Among the names on the list are Sex an the City star Cynthia Nixon, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes, and longtime de Blasio confidante Bertha Lewis, who once led the social justice group ACORN.

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Areas that are expected to be in a 100-year flood zone in the 2020s and 2050s as sea levels rise from global warming, according to new projections by the NYPCC

The city's climate adaptation projects should be devised to handle conditions far worse than even the most severe sea level rise estimates, scientists say.

insideclimatenews.org - by Katherine Bagley and Maria Gallucci- June 20, 2013

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to protect New York City from future superstorm Sandys and other climate-related threats is the most ambitious and scientifically accurate plan of its kind in the world. But as global warming intensifies and sea levels rise, even this strategy may not be enough to flood-proof the city for very long, experts say.

Flooding in Red Hook, Brooklyn after Sandy (Flickr/gunnicool)

The agency ignored state and city officials' appeals to update the maps with better data until it was too late.

wnyc.org - December 6, 2013
by Al Shaw : ProPublica / Theodoric Meyer : ProPublica / Christie Thompson : ProPublica

When Patrice and Philip Morgan bought a house near the ocean in Brooklyn, they were not particularly worried about the threat of flooding.

Federal maps showed their home was outside the area at a high risk of flood damage. . .

. . . But the maps drawn up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency were wrong. And government officials knew it.

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The new map could put twice as many homes in the flood zone and raise premiums for many homeowners.

propublica.org - by Al Shaw - June 12, 2013

. . . while Sandy’s water has long receded and the bulldozers have left, a residual effect for homeowners along the city’s coastline still lurks quietly beneath the surface. It comes in the form of a July 2012 law called the Biggert-Waters Act, which will end subsidized rates for property owners who are remapped into more severe flood zones, increasing their flood insurance premiums 20 percent a year until they reach market rates, and will apply those higher rates for newly purchased property.

The potential increases, which proponents say are necessary to sustain the National Flood Insurance Program, are not widely understood by residents, and may be catching them unprepared.

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Biggert-Waters Act - Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012