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Community: Take Time This Week To Prepare For Hurricane Season
Dear MSV readers,
September is National Preparedness Month, and www.ready.gov highlights resources and best practices to prepare you and your family for Hurricane season. Also useful are the “Hoboken Ready” resources that highlight recommendations to prepare yourself,and your building, for a natural disaster.
Hurricanes are among nature’s most powerful and destructive phenomena. On average, 12 tropical storms, 6 of which become hurricanes, form over the Atlantic Ocean,Caribbean Sea, or Gulf of Mexico during the hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30 each year. Over a typical 2-year period, the U.S.coastline is struck by an average of 3 hurricanes, 1 of which is classified as a major hurricane (winds of 111 mph or greater).
By knowing what actions to take before the hurricane season begins, when a hurricane approaches, and when the storm is in your area, as well as what to do after a hurricane leaves your area, you can increase your chance of survival. While hurricanes pose the greatest threat to life and property, tropical storms and depression also can be devastating. The primary hazards from tropical cyclones (which include tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes) are storm surge flooding, inland flooding from heavy rains, destructive winds, tornadoes,and high surf and rip currents.
· Storm surge is the abnormal rise of water generated by a storm’s winds. This hazard is historically the leading cause of hurricane related deaths in the United States. Learn how Hoboken is working with the State of New Jersey on a $230 million project to resist storm surge.
· Flooding from heavy rains is the second leading cause of fatalities from land-falling tropical cyclones. Widespread torrential rains associated with these storms often cause flooding of low-lying roadways. Learn how Hoboken is working to mitigate rainfall flooding.
· Winds from a hurricane can destroy buildings and manufactured homes. Signs, roofing material, and other items left outside can become flying missiles during hurricanes.
· Tornadoes can accompany land-falling tropical cyclones. These tornadoes typically occur in rain bands well away from the center of the storm.
· Dangerous waves produced by a tropical cyclone’s strong winds can pose a significant hazard to coastal residents and mariners.
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Last week’s Spaghetti Dinner saw little by way of politicos appearing before the upcoming November elections. Other than a local referendum where voters will decide whether to bring back runoffs, the ballot for Mile Square political denizens is scant.
Then there’s the surprising highly contested New Jersey Senate campaign. Marine and businessman Bob Hugin has launched a herculean effort to take out and replace the highly controversial and to present, unconvicted, decade plus occupant in Senator Bob Menendez. Read More...
The broiling temperatures cooled perfectly for Hoboken’s 14th annual Spaghetti Dinner. The evening featured Sinatra tunes, good food, and another sold-out crowd.
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| The stars of the show at the Hoboken Spaghetti dinner, the people of Hoboken. |
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| Director Leo Pellegrini surveyed the land of diners and found it was good. |
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| Nothing beats the view for diners like the NYC skyline. |
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| With the main course a memory, it’s time for cookies met with a smile. |
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| Sporting the best tan this side of the Hudson, BoE trustee Sheillah Dallara was in attendance with her family. |
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| Councilman Jim Doyle stayed for the duration of the event. Mayor Ravi Bhalla and Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher made brief appearances at the event earlier. |
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| Councilman Mike DeFusco greets a table of friends working it like no one’s business. |
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| NJ Senate candidate Bob Hugin’s daughter, Hillary, made a surprise appearance and spoke to many on behalf of her father who was born and raised up the hill in Union City. |
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Hillary Hugin smiles for MSV in this evening ending group photo anchored by Hoboken political observer Josh Einstein (rear center).
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MSV attended this year’s event with a late invitation. Kind thanks to Geri Fallo and Director Leo Pellegrini for their kind accommodation. This year’s photo essay comes courtesy of their hospitality. Salud!
Official release:
Dear friends and neighbors:
It’s hard to believe that summer is coming to an end in just a few days! I wish I could say it is hard to believe that we have once again woken to the effects of another water main break.
This has been an important topic to me since I ran for election in 2015 and my informal polling from door knocking put fixing our water infrastructure as one of the top two resident concerns (fixing Washington St. was the other). This was at the time of our last spate of breaks which occurred that Fall and culminated with the Thanksgiving week break of the main 24” service line that comes from Jersey City into the southwest corner of Hoboken.
As I said at a press conference yesterday with Mayor Bhalla, it feels like it’s déjà vu all over again, but not in a good way. I will not get the number correct as it continues to move, but I believe we have had approximately 15-20 breaks since the beginning of summer. And several major ones in the last few days – including the one last night down by the PATH.
That being said, I want to give you some color on both recent activity by the Mayor / City Council addressing concerns about our water infrastructure and a refresher on what we have been doing over the last couple of years while I have been one of your elected representatives on City Council (I can’t speak for before).
LET’S START WITH YESTERDAY’S PRESS CONFERENCE…
Mayor Bhalla announced yesterday three main initiatives –
Investigating immediately the causal effect between the large Jersey City Municipal Utility Authority meter chamber replacement project in SW Hoboken with the recent string of water main breaks; using governing body emergency powers to do so without having to go through a protracted bid process. The expectation is that changes in water pressure resulting from that project are what is triggering the recent breaks in Hoboken.
Pursuing any/all remedies, even legal only if necessary, to ensure that if the actions or inactions of either Suez or JCMUA (or any other entity) are determined to be the cause of the recent water main breaks, that Hoboken ratepayers will not be responsible for the emergency repair costs (totaling ~$350k through July already).
Initiating the process to re-bid the management of our water operations so that we can have a contract that is more favorable to Hoboken in terms of both economics and maintenance/repairs – this may or may not result in a change in our provider of these services.
Read More...
The Mile Square City is at a lull easing through the last of its August hot-fueled days and entering the summer homestretch of Labor Day Weekend.
For Hoboken’s mayor approaching his ninth month in office; it’s a continuation of his endless war and perpetual campaign to catapult his way out of town into higher office.
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It’s approaching Labor Day in Hoboken but it’s just another day
in the Mile Square City mayor’s endless feuding with everyone. |
To accomplish that quest, Ravi Bhalla has alienated and publicly tangled with the County Executive Tom DeGise (to Hoboken’s detriment) and pissed off the new NJ Governor Phil Murphy on the matter of commuters numbering in the thousands surrounding the recently sold Union Dry Dock. The site is the proposed fueling pit stop for NY Waterway ferries. Read More...
Official release:
Advisory: Water main break on Newark & Hudson
Please Advise: There has been water main break at Newark & Hudson. Crews have been on the scene making necessary repairs. Residents may experience low or no water pressure as SUEZ Water is making repairs. Thank you for your patience & updates will be made as they become available.
Official release:
Mayor Bhalla Bars Council Member from Entering Community Meeting
Hoboken, NJ – Mayor Ravi Bhalla held a “Community Meeting” last night at the Marineview Plaza building that was coordinated using city resources and attended by the Mayor’s taxpayer-funded staff, including Chief of Staff John Allen, Deputy Chief of Staff Jason Freeman and Constituent Services Chief Caroline Caulfield, as well as the Mayor’s security detail. But when Councilman Mike DeFusco attempted to enter the meeting, which was held in the ward he represents, Read More...
Coming only hours after the BromarGate scandal broke on MSV yesterday, Hoboken’s rookie mayor Ravi Bhalla showed that playing politics on community time and the community dime isn’t over.
Councilman Mike DeFusco who is a rival who hasn’t forgotten how he was defamed and eventually defeated with the use of a very politically-inspired “terror flyer” in last November’s mayoral campaign, found himself on ice, again.
According to his Twitter feed, DeFusco attempted to attend a community meeting in his first ward at Marine View. But he was blocked. Not figuratively, not theoretically but quite physically. Read More...
‘Hold the frame bro!’
Mayor Ravi Bhalla’s brother Amar appeared yesterday on Twitter (correction: Theftbook). He wasn’t making an appearance himself but appearing on behalf of his brother as Hoboken mayor.
This bizarre post arrived on Ravi Bhalla’s official mayoral account. Even by the standards of his own self-glorification, it began catching immediate scrutiny from the editor of Hmag, Chris Halleron.
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This Tweet yesterday “by” Ravi Bhalla congratulating himself on Twitter yesterday generated
quite the Tweet storm and some tawdry revelations. |
hMag promptly noted that both its response and the Ravi Bhalla tweet of self-adulation disappeared: Read More...
MSV stands with the First Amendment and all those who stand up against the onslaught of social media censorship.
There’s no buts, ifs or equivocation to justify the coordinated efforts to shut down political speech on social media.
Having seen it first hand for retweeting a comedy video where a guy wore a helmet resembling a computer saying he self-identified as one; the threat to political speech is real. For the MSV retweet, Twatter suspended its account for a week.
Others are faring far worse in what is an obviously politically motivated attempt to stop political speech. None of it is an accident. Read More...
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