A year after the storm, the food line is one of many reminders of the persistent vulnerability of New York City's public housing and the hundreds of thousands of people who live in the projects.
There are the unrepaired leaks and the recurring mold in apartments, and in the ground-floor units that remain empty and uninhabitable. There is the unreliable heat from portable boilers, and the sinkholes that keep some playgrounds closed.
And there is the ocean, a block away for some residents, and the terror the Atlantic now inspires along a waterfront lined with public housing.
"I don't sleep good at night since then because I think my apartment is going to be flooded again," said Irma Pagan, 68, a resident of 47 years at O'Dwyer Gardens, a project across the street from the Coney Island boardwalk.
Ms. Pagan said that when she returned to her first-floor apartment two days after evacuating for the hurricane, "I came in here and I fainted on the floor — I never expected the destruction."
Now, she said, "I don't want to see the water; sometimes I don't even want to talk about what happened."
For many people living in public housing, the hardships unleashed by Hurricane Sandy left them perilously reliant on the New York City Housing Authority, even as the agency found it was unprepared for the storm and for the flooded boiler rooms and wrecked electrical systems that marked the aftermath. The city's largest landlord and the country's biggest local housing agency, Nycha, as it known, was inundated, and a year later it is still recovering.
Dozens of older and frail residents were trapped on high floors for weeks without power or medication. Portable generators and other emergency equipment were not readily available to replace lost light and heat. And the Housing Authority did not know where to find many of its most vulnerable tenants among the scores who failed to evacuate.
Coney Island — with nine public housing developments, high numbers of poor and infirm people, and an unobstructed view of the Atlantic — was hit hard. At O'Dwyer, a housing project with six high-rises and more than 1,000 residents, the power was not restored for over two weeks. Heat and hot water took even longer.
Complaints from public housing tenants against what they consider an unresponsive city bureaucracy are not new, but old maintenance problems have grown worse, and even the most resilient residents speak of a heightened sense of neglect — all at a time the Housing Authority is counting on their involvement to better prepare for the next disaster.
Housing officials are asking residents who are infirm or disabled to provide their medical information so the agency can share it with other city agencies to coordinate search rescue efforts; at least 900 have signed up so far, officials said. Residents are also being asked to volunteer as floor captains who would knock on doors and distribute food during an emergency and to prepare bags with cash and other essentials to be ready for evacuations.
But some tenant leaders say it is an uphill battle when so many are still coping with storm damage. At a recent preparedness meeting called by housing officials at O'Dwyer Gardens, fewer than 20 tenants showed up.
"Maybe because things are not done, they lost faith," Ilma Joyner, president of the O'Dwyer Resident Association, said. "Before Sandy people's faith was low, and a year later it's worse because people feel they're not being taken care of."
Housing officials said their buildings did better than many private buildings and that their biggest challenge was the large number of residents who did not heed evacuation orders.
Over the last year, officials say they have taken steps to better prepare for those who "shelter in place," such as tracking apartments with residents with medical and mobility issues, and forging partnerships to coordinate with the community groups that were first to reach stranded residents.
Officials said they were also working on long-term protections like raising or waterproofing heating and electrical equipment in the affected developments. But most of this is in the planning stages and awaiting money from insurance carriers and federal agencies.
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