Before Hurricane Sandy -- one of the most powerful storms in recent history -- made landfall on the Jersey Shore, there was total devastation in the Caribbean. While frustration is mounting in the northeast with continued power outages, fuel shortages and, on Staten Island, lack of any sort of support, the Caribbean recovery has fallen off the edge of news coverage.
Most of the Caribbean countries are already impoverished, and the storm created unimaginable damage, including the scare of cholera.
Haiti reported the most storm-related deaths in the Caribbean with 52. Still suffering the after effects of a powerful earthquake, the threat of a cholera outbreak or other water-borne diseases will remain high for weeks in Sandy’s aftermath, meaning the storm’s death toll could rise higher still.
In Jamaica, where most of the population lives in bauxite housing, the building effort also continues. Jamaica depends on tourists from the Northeast. Individuals from such places as New York City, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. account for 40 percent of Jamaica’s tourism industry.
With frustration mounting in New York's Staten Island and New Jersey due to lack of fuel and continued power outages for at least nearly 900,000 in New York, it will take many months, if not years for people to rebuild their lives. Some may never completely recover. The rebuilding of lives will continue long after the cameras have left the area.
Staten Island residents feel neglected, with some suggesting that it is a matter of economics and that Manhattan gets everything while they are left in the dark. Residents feel that they are on the bottom of the totem pole with the continued lack of services.
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