It's About Time For Some Proactive Planning

Many of us have differences of opinion about how LIPA, the Town of North Hempstead, Verizon, Cablevision, and others handled the recent storm. Regardless of how we feel, however, we should all agree that the time has come for some more proactive planning by all our public authorities, not only including those, but also our Board of Education, police department, etc. We seem to be constantly reviewing what should have been, and this often degrades into a turf war, with each authority claiming they did all they could do, and deferring blame onto others.

LIPA and National Grid claim to have done all they could do in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. However, when I simply look at the amount of time it took to even assess situations, I do not believe that to be the case. In fact, as my 152-1/2 hour blackout showed, LIPA was not even communicating outages to the local National Grid workers, and if it were not for a very nice National Grid worker reading his friend's social network post, lamenting about his parents (who live on my block) being without power, and his Facebook friend's getting involved, we would have been without power even longer. Although our outage was first reported at about 3 a.m. on Sunday, and then repeatedly by numerous neighbors on a daily basis, I was told that the local National Grid workers were NEVER even informed! Once this nice man dragged a crew to our block, it took them less than two minutes to remedy what was obviously a rather easy problem to diagnose and correct. It would have been nice if our complaints were even transmitted. During this, I had the opportunity to voice my concern to the Town of North Hemspstead's 311 service, which had no more updated information than anyone else, and ended up serving as an information clearing house more than an action center. I was informed by some in TONH that the Town had been quite proactive in getting tree removal crews to assist LIPA, as if that was all that they could do. TONH said they felt they could accomplish more by working with LIPA than ruffling feathers, yet it certainly did not speed up the process terribly much.

A proactive approach would be having a plan for storm surges such as the one that flooded Shore Road and Mill Pond area. Other areas sandbag, yet our town has stated that they feel it would not have helped. However, anyone that observed the surge would realize that even 4 or 5 foot high sandbagging would have dramatically reduced the amount of flooding. I have also been told that the reason there is no sea wall is that they would not be able to get approval for one, yet it seems that a vigilant demand for some viable solution and alternative would be more proactive, since this is not the first time Shore Road has had water cross it. Similarly, when Central Ave was repaved and reconstructed a few years ago, wouldn't it have made more sense to improve and consider the persistent drainage issues (or lack of) on that street?

It appeared that some of our villages seemed far better prepared than others. The Village of Port North cleared all its drains prior to the storm, and worked with LIPA to improve their preparedness prior to the storm. Other villages and municipalities were pleased with the fact that they persistently notified residents, yet even those were somewhat inconsistent. However, I applaud that effort!

LIPA even had the audacity to use as an explanation (excuse?) for their difficulties that they were working off a 20-year-old plan. Huh?

Shouldn't we learn some lessons from this that relate to other areas? Perhaps our Board of Education should exhaustively pursue alternatives that might provide optimum education at a more efficient method. Perhaps the police could look at the difficulties at areas such as Irma and Main Street, when the traffic signals went out, and there were no one coordinating traffic, and apply those lessons to other areas of Port Washington that have persistent and consistent traffic/ safety issues (such as Main Street and Shore Rd), etc., and see what might be done if personnel were assigned, at least during peak hours, to assist in traffic issues.

Perhaps we should look at the efficiencies and deficiencies of our multiple municipality system, and enhance coordination between TONH, the various villages, the county and the state, since different roads are under various jurisdiction and authority.

One thing is certain. Although I have no doubt that all involved are well-meaning, isn't it about time for a better coordinated method of planning, and more thinking outside-the-box so that we act in a proactive, instead of reactive manner? For years, we have heard of meetings and plans, but we still so often seem unprepared. I am not a city planner, or an expert, but I know that if we don't start doing better, this spring we will once again have our annual-rite-of-spring school polarizing battle, and the next time there is a storm or emergency, we will be scrambling instead of implementing a well developed plan.

We should, we can, we must do better!