Obama consoles New York storm victims

American President Barack Obama. Picture: AFP.
| 16 November 2012
NEW YORK - President Barack Obama consoled grieving victims of Superstorm Sandy on the ground and surveyed disaster zones from the air on Thursday, visiting parts of New York City still struggling to recover 17 days after the storm devastated the US Northeast.

Wearing a wind breaker and sturdy shoes, the president walked through destroyed sections of the borough of Staten Island, hugging and chatting with people whose lives were shattered when Sandy slammed ashore on October 29, bringing a record storm surge and killing more than 120 people.

Among those he consoled were Glenda and Damien Moore, the Staten Island parents of 4-year-old Connor and two-year-old Brandon, two boys who died after being torn from their mother's arms by raging floodwaters.

At the request of the Moores, Obama also praised New York police Lieutenant Kevin Gallagher, who stayed with the Moore family to help them through that tragic night.

"That's not in the job description of Lieutenant Gallagher. He did that because that's what so many of our first responders do. They go above and beyond the call of duty to respond to people in need," Obama told reporters.

"That spirit and sense of togetherness and looking out for one another is what is going to carry us through this tragedy. It's not going to be easy," he said before returning to Washington aboard Air Force One.

It was Obama's first trip to New York since the storm and his 6 November re-election. The trip came as he confronted other pressing issues such as the "fiscal cliff" of looming automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that could stunt economic growth, unrest in the Middle East, and the fallout from the resignation of his CIA director.

The gigantic storm caused an estimated $50 billion in damage as it inundated lower Manhattan with seawater, rearranged the New Jersey shore and Long Island, and tore up neighborhoods in far-flung areas of New York City's outer boroughs.

At least 22 people died in Staten Island, a Republican-leaning enclave that nonetheless voted for Obama 50 percent to 49 percent over challenger Mitt Romney.

Obama announced he was appointing Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, a New Yorker, as the federal government's "point person" to oversee storm recovery.

He left unanswered exactly how to pay for the damage.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo estimated the storm caused $50 billion in damage and economic losses, more than $30 billion of that in New York state alone.

FEMA is due to reimburse some victims and local governments for damage but has only about $8.1 billion available, meaning Congress may have to appropriate more money at a time when much of the talk is of fiscal restraint in Washington.

The storm also caused a surge in new claims for US jobless benefits last week and weighed on factory activity in November, providing early signs of how heavily Sandy could hit the US economy in the fourth quarter.