Obama Visits Storm-Ravaged Areas in New York

Source: NY Times

By JAMES BARRON

President Obama flew over areas of Queens that were ravaged by Hurricane Sandy and stopped on Staten Island on Thursday to meet with emergency workers and families whose lives were upended by the devastating storm.

On a day of thin, almost hazy sun —a bright contrast to the ominous, slate-gray sky just before and just after the storm hurled a wall of water against the coast — the president flew to Kennedy International Airport and boarded a helicopter that took him over the Rockaway Peninsula and on to Staten Island, still partly flooded. The president’s helicopter landed at Miller Field, a former Army Air Corps installation in the New Dorp section of Staten Island that has become a center for efforts to rebuild from the storm.

The storm charged up the Atlantic Coast late last month, killing more than 100 people along the way, with most of the deaths in low-lying sections of New York and New Jersey. It exacted a particularly high toll on Staten Island. Of 43 deaths attributed to the storm in New York City, 23 were on Staten Island. But the storm also left millions without power and thousands in need of homes.

On Thursday, the president stopped at a federal disaster recovery center, where a group of about 200 residents cheered as he arrived. He chatted with the Staten Island borough president, James P. Molinaro, and other officials. Later he is expected to stop at a Small Business Administration tent and greet a line of disaster workers from FEMA Corps, an AmeriCorps program started in 2009. He also visited a food distribution tent.

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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/16/nyregion/obama-to-view-hurricane-sandy-recovery-in-new-york.html?partner=EXCITE&ei=5043

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Pool photograph by Luke Sharrett

President Obama visited a hurricane relief center on Staten Island on Thursday.