Dear Representative Lee, We are writing you today, as Kentuckians of up to five generations deep, to address some concerns with recent comments purported to be made by you during a recent interim joint committee of the KY legislature focused on the EPAs climate rules. We were recently informed that during that meeting of that august body, you laughed and said you remembered when Times magazine reported that New York City would be under water in 20 years. While it must be made clear that we were not present to experience your comment in context, and do not understand the intention of your statement; we will assume that your comment is meant to communicate at the very least that you find climate change to be at worst a trick by those that would limit growth and that are in league with a vast liberal agenda, and at best an unsubstantiated scientific theory. Simultaneously, we are assuming that your comment is meant to discredit the presence of any ‘real’ evidence that New York city has suffered any substantial flood damage from the effects of increasingly strong storms brought on by this change in climate. To address your comment above, Mr. Lee, we would like to offer you some free education around a recent event that happened in New York City, as well as evidence and analysis by professional Urban Ecologist currently working in the field of city sustainability and resiliency (both multi-million dollar industries either for good or ill). On the evening of October 29th 2012, a category-1 hurricane landed in Brigantine New Jersey just Northeast of Atlantic city. This post-tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds was considered the most destructive and deadly of the 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season. This qualifier is present to alert you to the actual real life fact that this was not the only hurricane that season. Sandy went on to become the largest Atlantic hurricane on record and took the lives of upwards of 280 people in seven counties. Damage to the United States was estimated at $65 billion. But Mr. Lee, you could have learned that with a brief glance at the Wikipedia page on the subject which we’ve included for you here for your viewing pleasure (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy#Mid-Atlantic_2). What we are here to express to you today is the toll that this hurricane had on New York City, and to hopefully clarify some of your misconceptions about whether New York City has been underwater in the last 20 years or whether it will be again. On the evening of October 29th 600,000 New Yorkers lost power. Flooding streets, tunnels and subways made transit anywhere immediately impossible. Over 100,000 homes were lost to flooding and fire, and over 45 deaths in the New York City Metropolitan area were recorded. Businesses were closed for weeks, and the New York Stock Exchange, the symbol and physical center of global financial power was closed completely for two days. The calculated economic cost was $42 billion dollars, and $18 billion for the city of New York alone. The city of New York lost almost double the entire Kentucky State budget in the matter of two days, due to weather. To help contextualize this loss in a more personal way, we would like to share what some of us saw, on the ground, as we worked in affected areas, many five to ten inches underwater over the next two weeks. “I arrived in Far Rockaway the next afternoon alongside volunteers. We worked to distribute two vans full of hot food. We had such a long line and such a lack of resources that we had to literally scoop hot food into peoples hands as they stood ankle deep in water and mud, soaking wet, cold, and with no idea what would happen next.” - Anonymous. “The house that we had chosen to use as a base camp was on fire when we arrived. I guess due to an electrical fire.” - Anonymous. “In many cases, people living in high rises in Manhattan, couldn’t get access to water or food. There were older folks living in some of the buildings on the top floor. Neighbors had to organize themselves, cause FEMA wasn’t around, to bring food and water...actually, they had to make sure people at the top were still alive! But yeah, they brought food and water to those people for weeks.”- Anonymous. Mr. Lee, we are certain that you have enough access to media coverage, newspapers, and general word of mouth information to know that New York City was indeed struck by the largest, most destructive hurricane of 2012. As you can clearly see from the pictures provided, NYC was indeed ‘underwater’, and we can only wonder what your purpose was in denying and making light of this horrible disaster? What possessed you to make such a claim? Whose interest did it serve? We will not try and guess here. We are simply interested in offering you the necessary education, free of charge, so that you can better represent yourself in the future, and perhaps begin to have much more informed conversations with not only your constituents, but with your peers, and organizations in Kentucky that are working to move your state towards a clean energy transition, which as we both know, would provide jobs, and necessary infrastructure for moving Kentucky into the 21st century, well ahead of many other states. Thank you for your time, sir. Best, Kentuckian Expatriates, currently residing in New York City.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 23:32:26 +0000
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