Rye Councilwoman Julie Killian sent over her notes from a press conference held by Senator Chuck Schumer at Rye Playland this afternoon at 2:30pm. Here is her report:
"Westchester is now included in the FEMA disaster zone. The White House did not originally include Westchester and CE Rob Astorino and other elected officials have been lobbying for it since the storm began. That means more reimbursement from FEMA for our localities and individuals. FEMA has promised to set up at least one Disaster Recovery Center (DRC) in Westchester within 2 days and hopefully more after that. Sen Schumer said that FEMA has plenty of money now and checks could come as early as next week. He made it sound really easy, just have receipts and pictures of damaged items and checks will come. Someone else told me that you have to be part of the FEMA flood insurance program to get reimbursed for water damage so who knows. For example, some of the clubs in town do have that. Army Core of Engineers is sending Debris Recovery experts to help with tree and other storm debris so hopefully with more man power progress should be seen. Rob Astorino and Rye officials have made it clear to Con Ed that they want them to take direction from the local community in what the priorities are especially in not waiting until everything is cleared before beginning power restoration. They have asked that schools absolutely have power by Sunday. People should expect that school will be open on Monday.
As far as gas goes. The port is now open after being closed by the Coast Guard so the tankers sitting outside the port are getting in. A large ship with 2 million barrels of gas went up to Newburgh and comes down to the County from there via trucks. Also the facility in Linden (NJ??) where most of our gas come through has its power restored. Hopefully that means more gas for us and no lines or at least shorter lines.
All officials there were very adamant that they had told Con Ed that Nov 11 was not good enough. Since we have been hearing Nov 9 in Westchester the 11th sounds really bad.
As an aside there are dozens of trucks in the Playland parking lot and trucks were continuing to arrive. Supposedly a large crew from Maryland has arrived. However, my thought was I would rather see them out on the roads rather than sitting in the parking lot!!"
