PortSide NewYork wins White House "Champions of Change" Sandy recovery award (Originally posted May 2013)→

PortSide NewYork is honored to have won a White House "Champions of Change" award for our work during and after hurricane Sandy. We hope the award will allow us to continue our Sandy-aid work, launch new resilience training programs, and attract more assistance to Red Hook. Things look promising; the phone has started to ring.  Until we finish the blogpost about Part II of our Sandy story, we've added photos to a press release below to tell that story. Part I of the story, how we protected the MARY A. WHALEN from Sandy, can be read here.

PortSide's Story Ashore

PortSide is based on a historic ship, the tanker MARY A. WHALEN, which the organization succeeded in getting listed on the National Register of Historic Places just days before the storm.  In the face of Sandy, PortSide’s first responsibility was to protect the MARY from damage, and to prevent her from damaging the property of others.  The sad fate of the tanker JOHN B. CADDELL, which went aground during Sandy, is an example of what can happen to an untended ship this size. PortSide assembled a crew of volunteers to prepare the MARY over five days before the surge and to ride out the storm on the vessel.

After assessing the damage to their archive of historic papers and artifacts stored in the shed, the PortSide crew entered Red Hook on Wednesday afternoon to find that the community had not fared as well. PortSide made an immediate decision to drop their own issues, decamp from the ship, and offer to help. The result was the Sandy aid station "351". 

Realty Collective's listings were replaced with emergency info (Copy)

At first the internet was down and we ran a Clear wifi hotspot modem up the tree for two days to get a signal (Copy)

Applying to FEMA in the back room (Copy)

Susan Povich, Red Hook Lobster Pound (L) and Rob Walsh, Commissioner Small Business Services (R) (Copy)

inflating a new air bed to replace a flooded mattress (Copy)

The queue to talk to the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce (Copy)

"Brooklyn, only the strrong survive" on t-shir of Steve Tarpin of Steve's Key Lime Pie (Copy)

James Ellis (r) of Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce ever at the ready! (Copy)

Architect's advice on rebuilding (Copy)

People in to warm up and charge up (Copy)

"351" was a stop for outside aid workers to connect with Red Hook (Copy)

Outside "351" Realty Collective's listings racks were great for emergency info (Copy)

Mayor's office Restoration staff at "351" (Copy)

Craig Hammerman, District Manager of Brooklyn, Community Board 6, in his nomination of PortSide for the “Champions For Change” Award, said “PortSide NewYork’s innovative approach was to apply their experience with cultural pop-ups to create an immediate, inventive community-based Sandy aid station that continually changed services in response to needs and opportunities.  PortSide deployed a deep knowledge of the community to pull it all off.”

Essential to the PortSide effort was the ability to rapidly identify partners and forge agreements. On Thursday night, PortSide Director Carolina Salguero began assessing what other groups were already doing, and where PortSide could best use its capabilities. Salguero worked with Realty Collective, a community-minded real estate brokerage with offices in the Columbia Waterfront District and Red Hook neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Realty Collective donated a storefront at 351 Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, complete with free electricity, internet and a phone line, despite the fact that their principal Victoria Hagman was herself a Sandy victim whose Red Hook home was flooded.

Over Thursday night, Realty Collective and PortSide secured the co-operation of Gallery Brooklyn, who shares the storefront with the brokerage.  The result was an only-in-Red-Hook blend: an aid station run by a maritime organization in a real estate office that was also an art gallery. 

PortSide gathered volunteers off the street to get six computer workstations, office furniture and equipment from PortSide’s offices on the tanker to set up at “351”. The internet was down, so PortSide volunteer and museum curator Rothenberg ran a Clear wireless hub up a tree for two days until a PortSide contact at the Port Authority, who had previously worked to establish the cellphone network in the northeast, helped get Red Hook’s Verizon internet and cellphone service reconnected.

 “351” became a haven for people -- to escape the cold, to charge cell phones, I-pads, and power tools, to check e-mail to blow up a new air bed, to start the FEMA application or an insurance claim, or to wait for an escort to enter an apartment building whose electronic doors didn’t lock without power. Sandy victims remarked that the gallery environment with bright art on the walls was uplifting. The Director of Gallery Brooklyn, Jenna Weber, was so moved by the scene that she offered to donate 10% of exhibition sales to Red Hook relief.

PortSide’s MO was to respond to initiatives or needs coming from the community, through both action and communication. Emergency information replaced real estate listings in the storefront window. “351” was the first small business recovery center in Red Hook, before IKEA’s aid center opened or the FEMA trailers arrived, and served as a hub for Red Hook residents and business people to learn about aid programs while gaining emotional support and tips from one another. Residents and businesses could use the space to set up their own meetings – one day included overlapping sessions with a restaurant supply vendor and a legal aid clinic with 20 lawyers. Realty Collective invited Katrina-savvy architect Jim Garrison from the Pratt Institute to talk to a packed house about resilient ways to rebuild. PortSide served as a conduit to and from the growing sources of outside aid: elected officials, the Mayor’s office, FEMA, and the Department of Small Business Services.

Residents of Pioneer Street showed extraordinary initiative and cooperation on their one block and brought many ideas down the street to PortSide, who helped manage them and shared them with other Red Hook residents.  One example was the coordination of the services of angel electrician Danny Schneider, who arrived from nearby Park Slope in Brooklyn and went on to inspect 60 homes at no charge and to repair many.  (He also volunteered in the Rockaways.)

PortSide closed the center in early December. During PortSide’s time ashore, the shorepower connection to the tanker MARY A. WHALEN was knocked out, and PortSide operated for 35 nights with flashlights and one 15 amp extension cord.

Today, PortSide continues providing Sandy relief work via other social media, working with elected officials and on post Sandy initiatives from the Mayor’s office, and by responding to requests from residents and businesses. Plans are being developed for programs that will help Red Hook learn from its own response and develop response plans for future floods. PortSide wants to bring its two constituencies, the world ashore and the world afloat, together. Inland people can be trained in the mariner knowledge base that enabled PortSide to prepare the ship for the storm and which might have prevented a lot of the damage.

PortSide's nominator for the award, the District Manager of Brooklyn Community Board 6 Craig Hammerman wrote “PortSide’s work is an example of the community-based, mutual-aid system that has caused the heavily-damaged neighborhood of Red Hook to become a model for New Yorkers looking for lessons in the Sandy story.” 

 Statement by Carolina Salguero, Director of PortSide NewYork

All of us here at PortSide NewYork are very honored to receive this White House award and look forward to meeting the other winners so we can learn from their stories. After that, we look forward to growing the post-Sandy flood preparedness programs we would like to offer Red Hook and beyond.  We would like to thank the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for their support during Hurricane Sandy while we were in their Red Hook container port.  We offer profuse thanks to our partners at “351”, Realty Collective and Gallery Brooklyn, who opened their doors to Red Hook and made the aid center possible. Victoria Hagman of Realty Collective is really a gem to have given so much at a time when her own home was so destroyed by Sandy.  We would like to thank all those volunteers who came in to help, especially the angel electrician Danny Schneider who did work in Red Hook and the Rockaways at no charge.  Speaking personally, I was very moved by the collective spirit which sustained Red Hook in those first dark days.  Let’s keep that spirit alive; it takes a village, we were all it, and we need to keep that spirit going forward.

Statement by Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY):

“PortSide NewYork is to be commended for their work protecting the MARY A. WHALEN and establishing relief services for Red Hook.”

 Statement by New York State Senator Velmanette Montgomery
“It gives me great pleasure to give my highest recommendation for consideration as a Champion for Change” to PortSide NewYork.

PortSide NewYork is headquartered on the MARY WHALEN, a decommissioned tanker ship in Red Hook, a coastal community in Brooklyn. PortSide NewYork has been working for years to preserve and communicate the seafaring history of Brooklyn to our schoolchildren and new neighbors. They have embodied community service every day of their existence, but during Superstorm Sandy, they showed exactly how deep commitment to service and community could be.

Thanks to their professional preparations, the MARY WHALEN weathered the storm and the destructive surge in fine shape, but the same could not be said for Red Hook itself. The neighborhood was devastated and lacked electricity and other services for weeks afterward.  The staff of PortSide NewYork, led by the indefatigable Carolina Salguero, came ashore and set up a communications hub and aid center in a donated space. They set up meetings between residents and elected officials, engineers, lawyers, electricians...anyone who needed something came to them and PortSide NewYork reached out to find it. I don't know what we would have done without them.”

Statement by Rob Walsh, Commissioner of the NYC Department of Small Business Services

“Immediately after Hurricane Sandy, I was out in impacted neighborhoods like Red Hook speaking to small business owners about their needs and how the City could help. It was incredible to see the individuals, organizations, and business owners who stepped up to help each other out. PortSide New York served as a strong partner, helping us get the word out about the City’s low-interest loans, matching grants, and other assistance available to small business owners impacted by Hurricane Sandy, and I congratulate them for this well deserved award.

Statement by Carlo A. Scissura, President & CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce “Red Hook was one of the neighborhoods hardest-hit by Sandy. It’s because of groups like PortSide that we were able to help businesses in the neighborhood,” said Carlo A. Scissura, President & CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. “By housing members of our staff during those critical weeks following the storm, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce was able to help business owners fill out essential loan applications and other paperwork in order to get their stores open again. PortSide’s aid center became a critical hub for the community and a place where they could get relief. We could not have done our work in helping local businesses without them.”

Scott Pfaffman in front of his property at 360 Van Brunt (Copy)

One building grew their collection of work gloves out front (Copy)

The queue for aid supplies inside Visitation Church (Copy)

Occupy was a force running a lot of the aid work at RHI (Copy)

Meetings were held at Kentler Gallery (Copy)

Nydia Velazquez and Rob Walsh lead the first meeting for small businesses at Kentler Gallery (Copy)

There was an aid center in the cellar of the River of God Church at 110 Wolcott Street (Copy)

For weeks, demolition garbage lined Van Brunt for many weeks (Copy)

With the power off, Stop One staff ran around the bodega with flashlights and served customers from a window (Copy)

Thousands of volunteers flooded into Red Hook, which were dispatched from SBIDC's Van Brunt Street office by Friday the week of the storm (Copy)

Reginald Flowers of Falconworks Theatre group leading a community meeting at PS27 (Copy)

Statement by Danny Schneider, Principal, Schneider Electrical Contracting
“Hurricane Sandy threw Red Hook into a tail spin.  Residents rose to the occasion and with tenacity and synergy, and strengthened their character.”

Statement by Adam Armstrong, Pioneer Street Homeowner, blogger “A View from the Hook”

In the chaotic aftermath of Super Storm Sandy, PortSide New York provided a vital and invaluable resource for the residents of Red Hook. After riding out the storm and saving their own ship, the MARY WHALEN, PortSide came ashore, quickly set up shop at 351 Van Brunt Street and proceeded to make a base - a visible and accessible storefront - from where they could reach out, provide information, resources and assistance to their land lubbing neighbors, most of us who were desperately trying to recover from the immense damage that had been done to our homes and our unique, waterfront neighborhood.

PortSide and their team of volunteers co-ordinated tradesmen to go and physically assist our residents, and they gathered and disseminated information about anything they though would be helpful - FEMA, legal assistance, insurance matters, Con Edison, National Grid, the Rapid Repairs program, etc., and provided a connection to our representatives in government. On many of these matters, PortSide organized meetings and reached out to our residents, and in the case of our street - Pioneer Street - she co-ordinated the creation of a comprehensive contact list so that everyone on our block could share information and provide support to each other. It was - and still is - a wonderful way for the residents of Pioneer Street to keep in touch and get updates on our street's recovery, with Carolina Salguero, PortSide’s Director, checking in regularly to see how things are going and, many month's later, still providing advice and information wherever and whenever she can.

Statement by Gallery Brooklyn

“Gallery Brooklyn raised over $1K from the sale of Brooklyn-born artist, Jeremy Hoffeld, whose oil paintings gave comfort to the shell-shocked residents of Red hook. The funds will be donated to the Red Hook Initiative, a non-profit organization that provides enrichment geared toward the arts for children of the Red Hook community."

About PortSide NewYork

PortSide NewYork is honored to have won a White House "Champions of Change" award for our work during and after hurricane Sandy. We hope the award will allow us to continue our Sandy-aid work, launch new resilience training programs, and attract more assistance to Red Hook. Things look promising; the phone has started to ring.  Until we finish the blogpost about Part II of our Sandy story, we've added photos to a press release below to tell that story. Part I of the story, how we protected the MARY A. WHALEN from Sandy, can be read here.

PortSide NewYork educates people about the BlueSpace, the water part of the waterfront.  PortSide works with the community ashore and the community afloat; our goal is to bring the two closer together, to foster their mutual understanding and to create synergies between the two.  PortSide programs are diverse—they include maritime preservation, visiting vessels, arts and educational programs, community service and advocacy.  What unites them is the focus on water and waterfront issues. Our mission is to bring NYC’s BlueSpace to life.

PortSide has its offices aboard a historic ship, the MARY A. WHALEN, and with her, PortSide has created the world's only oil tanker cultural center, a ship in the National Register of Historic Places. PortSide runs many programs on the MARY, and we run many off the ship as well. 

PortSide NewYork is negotiating with GBX▪Gowanus Bay Terminal for a homeport in Red Hook, Brooklyn!  At our prospective home, the tanker MARY A. WHALEN will be publicly accessible directly from Columbia Street across from IKEA.  [Note: MARY A. WHALEN relocated to Atlantic Basin May 2015]

PortSide’s electricity on the ship was repaired after 35 nights of reliance on flashlights and one 15-amp extension cord.  PortSide seeks professional conservator help with two waterlogged books from the 1850s (stored in a freezer since the flood) and restoration of the antique replacement parts for the ship’s engine which were stored in the shed.

More info

Official description of the White House Champions of Change Sandy awards

"Across the areas impacted by Hurricane Sandy, ordinary Americans are doing extraordinary, innovative things in their communities to respond to and recover from this disaster. By partnering with the whole community, we, as a nation, are better positioned to meet the unique needs of communities and neighborhoods across America."  

PortSide NewYork, and the other 16 winners, were at a White House award ceremony on April 24 for a panel discussion and remarks by the head of FEMA Craig Fugate and the head of HUD Shaun Donovan.   Carolina Salguero, Director of PortSide NewYork represented PortSide on the panel. A video of her remarks is here.

FEMA handled the Sandy nomination process.  The head of FEMA Craig Fugate spoke at the White House Champions ceremony and explained that the awards were important for underlining how the public was now being viewed by FEMA as survivors (not victims) and partners in recovery (not just recipients of aid). 

Thanks to Craig Hammerman, District Manager of Brooklyn Community Board 6 for nominating us. You can read his nomination here. 

For PortSide's latest Sandy relief information, see our regularly updated blogpost and follow us on Twitter

PortSide NewYork Hyster eligible for National register of Historic Places - updated 6/3/20

2020 update

Have you got experience repairing a 1941 Hyster Karry Krane? We could use your help! We expect to get a 1941 Fairbanks Morse engine from Kennett, Missouri in July, so we are interested in repairing our 1941 Hyster Karry Krane in order to have a crane to use to lift parts off that engine preparatory to bringing them aboard our ship MARY A. WHALEN. We will be using parts from the 1941 Kennett engine to restore the 1938 Fairbanks Morse engine in the MARY. Below is an edited version of our 2013 blogpost about our Hyster.

Our manual for the 1941 Hyster Karry Krane is here.

Another triumph!  Another historic item for Red Hook! Our Hyster crane (built in 1941) has been deemed eligible to be on the National Register of Historic Places! and in record time~

What triggered this accomplishment

In just two days, our Historian/Curator Peter Rothenberg researched the history of our 1941 Hyster and the history of this "Karry Krane" model, submitted an application to SHPO (the NYS Historical Preservation Office) to see if it was eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and got that application approved! 

We profusely thank the staff at SHPO for reviewing our application in just hours, and we also profusely thank Jenny Bernstein of FEMA who told us about the grant that prompted us to focus on the Hyster. The Hyster was flooded by Sandy, and the grant is for Sandy damage to historic and cultural resources. 

PortSide applied for funding to reverse Sandy damage to the Hyster and to the replacement parts for MARY A. WHALEN's engine which were in the shed. The grant does not cover damage to historic documents which were flooded by Sandy. 

We applied for for the Hyster, and for damages to MARY's engine parts we would use. (The grant would not cover damage to those engine parts we planned to sell to support the restoration of the MARY A. WHALEN's engine.)  Earlier this year, we applied for FEMA Sandy recovery funds for Sandy damages, but we do not yet know if we will get funding.  We did not apply until May 2013 because we were told in a November 2012 funding workshop that we were not eligible; that was corrected in May, at which point we immediately sought Sandy recover funds. 

Crash course into the National Register of Historic Places

In short, getting on the National Register of Historic Places is a two-stage process: being "deemed eligible" and actually being listed. PortSide did the MARY A. WHALEN in two steps.  For something to be on eligible or listed, it has to be deemed historical significant in some or all of the following ways:

Is it associated with an important person, event, or movement in history? Does it represent a significant design or technology, or is it a special example of a particular style? Is it the work of a recognized master? Could it yield important archaeological information about our past?

Here is our full application to SHPO in two parts.

Determination of Eligibility (DOE) for listing on the National Register

Supplemental History of Michael Cowhey

SHPO's response was "Thank you for pulling together this very compelling and fascinating history of the "Karry Krane"  in such a short amount of time!  Both myself and my colleague, Kath LaFrank of our NR Unit, have reviewed your submission and, based on the information provided, the Hyster "Karry Krane" is eligible for the State and National Registers of Historic Places.  The only other somewhat similar type of property in NYS that we've called eligible is a historic steam shovel in LeRoy, NY. "

We copy excerpts from our DOE application below.

Todd Shipyard boomed during WWII. There were mobile cranes like ours in use at Todd. We have yet to check if the grain terminal used them.

The successor to our 1941 Hyster are the many forklifts used all over Red Hook.

History In brief

The “Karry Krane” name was first used July 14, 1941. PortSide’s Crane is from 1941. PortSide’s crane is both one of the original Karry Kranes made and, while once common, is now one of the last of its kind.

This crane type was developed by Hyster during WWII and was very significant to the war effort here and overseas. It was used in shipbuilding facilities, in ports for cargo handling and for rebuilding after the war effort. It was such a useful vehicle that Hyster produced it overseas when it opened its first plant outside the USA in 1951. It became an international workhorse. We find documentation that shows it was used in New Zealand in addition to Europe.

This particular Hyster crane was last used by Cowhey Brother Marine Hardware in Red Hook which closed in 2005 and donated their final inventory to PortSide NewYork. The Cowhey family was in several forms of maritime business in Red Hook for about 140 years when three Cowheys wound down the business.

Cowhey’s bought the crane from the Staten Island Bethlehem Steel shipyard when that closed in the 1960s. We presume that the crane was new when purchased by Bethlehem Steel when that yard boomed during the war effort.

Physical description of the crane

The crane dimensions are:

Body length 12’ 4”
Length of boom 10’ 1”
Overall length 22’ 3”
Height of body 3’ 3”
Height of boom 10’ 8”

1940: By experimental use of tractor frames, an advanced type of mobile crane is developed, later named the “Karry Krane."

1952: Hyster opens its first plant outside the USA, in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The Hyster 40” and the Karry Krane are the first machines to be assembled there.
Criteria for evaluation.

This 1941 Hyster Karry Krane meets the following National Regsiter criteria:

(a) that are associated with history of a prominent Red Hook family and business. It is the last sizeable artifact of that business. It is related to a collection of other artifacts we have for that business. This particular crane is related to maritime history of NYC (two sites, one in Red Hook, one in Staten Island). And the crane model is particularly related to WWII history everywhere this crane became a major workhorse
(d) that have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history. It is a means to tell stories related to the Cowhey family and business in Red Hook, the Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Staten Island, WWII and reconstruction operations in civilian and military applications.

History of the Hyster company

View fullsize

This is a 2.5 ton Hyster,the most popular World War 2,dock, lift and carry crane.they first came over on lease lend in 1941.

View fullsize

COLLECTION HYSTER KARRY KRANE MOBILE CRANE USAF USNAVY WWII

Establishing Willamette Ersted Co.
The company that would be known as Hyster Co. was founded by E.G. Swigert in 1929 under the name Willamette Ersted Co.[2] Initially, this company was established to manufacture logging winches for the forestry market in the Pacific Northwest, with headquarters in Portland, Oregon.

The Early Products
1934 saw the development of the straddle carrier with forks, which was one of the company’s earliest forklifts. Following this was the development of the BT, a forklift with a cable hoist system, able to lift 6,600 pounds (3,000 kg).[3] By 1940, the company began to manufacture its first piece of mobile lifting equipment, a mobile crane on a tractor frame, first known as a Cranemobile, later to be renamed Karry Krane. The Karry Kranes would prove to be very profitable for the company, as these lift trucks were used for loading and unloading massive cargo ships for importing and exporting purposes. In 1941, Willamette Ersted began recognizing a need for a smaller lift truck, and designed a new smaller model known as the Handy Andy. The following year, the Jumbo was introduced as the company’s first product to use pneumatic tires and a telescoping mast.

Operations in Peoria
In the company’s early years, one of its prominent customers was Caterpillar Tractor Co. Caterpillar held an exclusive contract with the company, whereby Willamette Ersted Co. would manufacture specialized winches for Caterpillar’s logging tractors. In light of this, the company decided in 1936 to open a warehouse and distribution center in Peoria, Illinois, where Caterpillar was headquartered. By 1940, Willamette Ersted Co. had begun full-scale manufacturing of products at its Peoria location.

For more info check out...  http://www.ritchiewiki.com/wiki/index.php/Hyster_Co.

History of the Cowhey family and their business in Red Hook

The story of this business is a means to cover several topics: how an immigrant family rises in stature, the growth of a marine business from “speculator” (eg, the maritime version of the scrap collectors with shopping carts today, someone who collected scrap metal by going boat to boat in the harbor), to a purveyor of nautical antiquities to the wealthy, then a marine hardware supplier and the operator of a port in Albany.
The Cowhey family grew in prominence in Red Hook from their speculator days in the 1860s, and at the peak of the business, they owned most of a block in the vicinity of their final outpost at 440 Van Brunt Street.
In 2005, as the business wound down, the Cowhey family operated a terminal in Albany of Federal Marine Terminals http://www.fmtcargo.com/.
Chronology of Cowhey family in Red Hook (for more, see attached history about Michael Cowhey)

John Cowhey started his business about 1862 [1937 obit says business started about 75 years ago]

By the time his son Michael Cowhey was running it, the business, John Cowhey Sons at 400 Van Brunt was a ship wrecking and salvage firm. The company was well known to decorators looking for nautical articles.

John Cowhey was famous for purchasing in 1911 the RELIANCE a racing yacht which one the America’s cup, dismantling her and selling her fittings and scrapping her parts. The 110-foot mast went to the Federal Baseball League park.

Michael Cowhey. d. 1937 had a wife Regina [or Margret according to a different source], a daughter Regina and two sons Thomas and John.

Thomas M. Cowhey in 1990 was the title holder to 440 Van Brunt which was built c. 1931, altered in 1957.

A Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 20, 1931 article describes John Cowhey as "one of the influential citizens of Red Hook" in his day.

The same article tells that Michael had in his yard several large old church bells that he had bought for scrap but had decided to hold on to. The bells rang eerily in the night but:

"If some one suggested that the ghost of an old Bailing ship skipper might be behind the tolling, he would nod solemnly. Then he would ask if his questioner had ever heard how in 1880 the wind blew so hard that Red Hook was white with scales, blown clean off the harbor fish, and how all the houses on the Hook had to be held in place by anchors. And how once it was so cold that he, Michael Cowhey, was able to walk barefooted over the ice to Staten Island. "

REPOSTING: PortSide NewYork Sandy Story Part 1: saving MARY WHALEN

View fullsize

10/27/19 We are reposting this 2013 blogpost to foster flood preparation. The post describes four days of preparing for Sandy. Today’s gale and the approaching date of 10/29 is reminding us of Sandy - and we want you to know about PortSide’s event on 10/29/19 at 3:15pm, the unveiling of a Sandy High Water Mark sign at the pedestrian entrance to Atlantic Basin, Red Hook, Brooklyn, corner of Pioneer and Conover Streets. At 4pm, the Barnacle Parade kicks off up the block. The parade is the way Red Hook commemorates Sandy since the one-year anniversary of the devastating storm.

This is PortSide NewYork's hurricane Sandy story, installment one.  

Installment one is a personal report by Carolina Salguero, Director of PortSide, speaking as Shipkeeper of the MARY A. WHALEN.  This installment covers PortSide's time in port preparing for Sandy, riding out the storm on the tanker, assessing our damage. We think the ship-related segment of our Sandy story is important because it shows how the maritime community in the port of NY-NJ spent days preparing for Sandy.   The maritime community has something to offer inland neighbors in terms of understanding how to assess flood risks and prepare for them.

The second installment of our Sandy story will cover PortSide's effort to help inland Red Hook, Brooklyn recover from the storm. 

The third installment will cover lessons learned and ideas for the future.

What a difference four days can make

Thursday, 10/25/12, Sandy minus four, the PortSide crew is excited to be hosting an elementary school class aboard the tanker MARY A. WHALEN.  After finishing a TankerTour and jolly lunch for 30 on deck with the City + Country School and waving goodbye to their coach bus, Dan Goncharoff says “have you been looking at this storm coming up the coast?”

View fullsize

C + C School visit, Thursday morning

I check the weather websites. This looks like hurricane Irene plus some.  

We convene a crew meeting and start hurricane preparations. School docents become a Sandy prep squad. By end of day, the deck was cleared of anything that could blow, and I am calling and emailing around for crew to help prepare and to ride out the storm on the ship. 

Friday morning, after more info about the storm, I am trying to find a protected berth for the tanker MARY A. WHALEN.  Just days before, we received word that our application had been accepted; the ship was on the National Register of Historic Places! Since the MARY is not fully restored, she lacks some equipment that would help her in a big storm: a working engine (eg, the ability to run away), machinery to raise her anchors if dropped to hold us in place, and a winch to haul in docklines under load. Compensating for that involves some extra forethought. 

Despite our efforts, we can’t find a good alternate berth for the MARY outside of the Red Hook Container Terminal.  Hughes Marine says “We’re out of space. You’ll be able to walk across Erie Basin by the time this is over; it will be so full of vessels.”  A contact at a shipyard says “we flooded during Irene, and this one looks to be worse, you sure you want to be over here?” “No and good luck,” is my answer.

After more checking of the weather, I decide to move the MARY where she rode out Irene, on the other side, the north side, of our current Pier 9B. (The south side lines up with the end of Degraw Street). For non-sailors, here’s how this kind of calculation goes:

Winds were expected to start from NE, swing around to the East and end up SW, but this could always change. If rough weather were coming from anything west to southwest, our current position has us exposed to the wind from the southwest and the fetch (long stretch of water over which wind can build up waves) from Staten Island up the Buttermilk Channel. 

The fendering (the wooden cribbing protecting ship and pier) is not robust on this side. A big advantage to the north side are some pilings at the inshore end that stand much taller than the pier and which would help prevent the tanker from riding up onto the pier if the surge were really high. 

The north side would have us more exposed from winds at the start of the storm, but the hill of Brooklyn Heights and the pier to the north of us (even though it has no shed) would provide a compensating wind break.  

As the wind clocked around to the south, a wall of containers near the bulkhead would provide a windbreak to the east, and the pier shed would be an enormous windbreak once the wind went south of east.  

A final consideration was that in the extreme case of docklines failing while we were on the northside, the tanker had a chance of bouncing around inside the space between the two piers for a while, maybe long enough for us to get other lines out or call for help; whereas, on the southside of the pier, if our docklines broke, tide or wind could shove the ship up on the rocks nearby to the south (surely the death of the tanker) or shoot us down the Buttermilk Channel towards unknown risks. 

I began calling tugboat companies to request a tow. Everyone is busy with storm prep so getting a tug takes a while.  I have the tug turn the MARY around so her stern faces east, putting her heavier end towards the expected wind direction. Her light bow is my worry.

The tug’s crew helps us put out storm lines, more lines than we would normally use, and double and triple parted lines. (Instead of a line just going from boat to dock, a triple-parted line goes from dock to boat to dock to boat).  The lines are set with a lot of slack to allow the boat to rise during the expected surge.  During Sandy, Peter Rothenberg and I will go out in the wind and rain to ease the lines as necessary

From Thursday until Monday, a changing array of volunteers bang through a punch list: gangway lashed to the deck. Gas generator moved near entry hatch and tested.  Gasoline, food, and water bought. Weepy portholes caulked. PortaSan moved inside the pier shed so it can't blow away.  

More calls to look for crew... Commercial boats have paid crew, but most historic vessels rely on a corps of volunteers and; with so many boats to protect, available bodies were scarce.  Compounding that, due to the danger, some spouses do not allow their partners to volunteer on the historic ships during the storm. Danger is one thing for paid crew; as a volunteer, it's another.

I ask Peter Rothenberg, our volunteer museum curator, if he wants to be crew. Peter makes a speedy calculation, “I hesitated for a moment, thinking this may be really unwise, and then said yes, probably being more reckless (brave?) than normally, because I had just lost my mother, and thus she was unable to question my judgment.”  

Peter Rothenberg

The harbor is abuzz with chatter on phone, email, and texts sharing weather info, plans, moral support. Mike Cohen has info on the South Street Seaport ships. Mike Abegg is dealing with the Harbor School boats. I talk to tug captains and ask Jan Andrusky, Logistics Manager of Weeks Marine, if she can share weather and Coast Guard updates as she had during Irene. Answer, “yes!” Jan is responsible for floating equipment on the eastern seaboard, the Gulf of Mexico, and more, and has lots of experience and access to weather data.

Bobby Silva, captain of a Reinauer barge up in Albany sends a text: “wish I gave you my keys to move my truck. My baby will be a goner.”  Other Reinauer crew who have not been sent out of town on vessels moved their vehicles from Erie Basin to the second floor of the garage at the Gowanus Home Depot and all their vehicles survived.

About a day before Sandy hit, the word comes that the surge would be at least 8 feet. Time to lengthen docklines.  

A sign that things will be worse than Irene is that the port moves the stack of containers along the bulkhead. My windbreak to the east is gone.  We also hear that the Port Authority will evacuate the port and lock the gates at midday before the surge, so there would be no new help getting to us. I ask the Port Authority Police officer if he will leave port if it gets really bad, “no, I will just drive a dump truck on patrol” is his stalwart answer. 

Somewhere in all this, there is an announcement that subways would stop running in advance of the storm, and Mayor Bloomberg declares evacuation for Zone A areas, which include our neighborhood of Red Hook. An evacuation order is not changing my plans, though it could limit my getting help.  

My mother calls “you’re not staying on the boat during this are you?”  My responsibility is to protect the MARY A. WHALEN and to protect her from doing damage to the property of others. AT 172’ long and 613 gross tons, she is big enough to cause a lot of destruction if she breaks loose.

Sandy is due Monday night. Sunday night, I am one of many recipients of an email telling Red Hook people which bars will be open and what movies are being screened.  This makes me wonder: Is the community ashore prepping for Sandy? Has anyone evacuated? After that email, PortSide’s maritime world feels separated from our shoreside neighbors by more than six blocks and a fence. 

Monday day, the weather rachets up.  My weather station is set up in the galley.  A laptop, a clipboard with regular print-outs of NOAA marine weather, updates from Jan, the worst news highlighted in yellow.  Peter nabs the ship's cat Chiclet and locks her in. As the weather rises, Chiclet cleans herself incessantly.  

I read the shocking news that the HMS BOUNTY has sunk in the storm, at sea. I hear from Paul Amico, a dockbuilder advising us, “I just saw a Don Jon tug heading up the North River with waves breaking over the wheelhouse.” That means 18’ waves in the Hudson.

HMS BOUNTY sinks. Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard

It gets colder and damper. I fire up the galley’s diesel stove, patented in 1918, as much to dry the air as to heat it.  As winds rise, Peter and out go out to add extra lines to the tarp covering the wheelhouse windows. After warming up over tea, I get word that the surge would be at least 12’ and would hit in about 5 hours, right at high tide. 

12’ is NOT good news. I am keen to keep the ship’s light bow from blowing or floating up onto the pier, my big worry during Irene, a risk to both boat and pier. The MARY’s stern is heavy and sits about 8’ in the water whereas her bow is actually up out of the water -- the forward engine room has been stripped, the forepeak has no ballast water, and she is carrying no cargo.  Paul Amico calls, “have you considered a preventer line?”  Yes. I turn to Peter, “time to go back out, time for a preventer line.”   

We run a line to Pier 9A, the pier 265 feet to the north of us.  We have a large collection of lightly-used docklines from tugboat friends. I bend together (that means tie together in mariner speak) two heavy eight-braid tug hawsers, and then add all our other dock lines.  To drag this through the water, we tie together an agglomeration of light line (rope) and hand-haul the collection around to the other pier.  

We are making the line off to a cleat on Pier 9A as the waters start to rise fast.  While heading back to the tanker, the waters crest the bulkhead and pool into the port.

The string piece of the pier is several feet higher than the port landmass, which gives us about 5 minutes to disconnect our shorepower cord, pull it up onto the boat, haul in the ladder, and start the generator. 

Somehow, between unplugging the shorepower from the shed and getting the cord onto the shed, our electrical system develops a short.  This means the generator turns off every time I plug in the shorepower cord. Peter then runs an extension cord to the generator to keep the laptop and mini fridge running.

So begins 35 nights, of relying on flashlights and one 15-amp extension cord, until our shorepower connection can be repaired.

The waters rise. The port’s exterior lights go out. A container lifts and bobs our way.  Humps appear in the water along the pier, like a long Loch Ness monster. I realize I am looking at all the tire fenders floating as high as their straps would allow. Somehow the overhead lights inside the shed stay on, and the windows in the doors afford the surreal view of an indoor sea.  

Peter and I watch orange bursts of light over Manhattan. “Probably transformer explosions,” I say.  Manhattan goes dark. I watch the water for several hours to make sure it isn’t rising and then sleep for several hours.

Lower Manhattan without power except at Staten Island Ferry Terminal. Jersey to the left, midtown to the right.
Upsticking bolts show where head logs were ripped off the pier by Sandy.

Tuesday’s plan is to shorten the docklines and get off the boat; but the wind is still so high that, even though the shed is a windbreak, the wind roaring over the shed is enough to grab the tippy top of the tanker and push us off the pier. The ebb tide pushes us back onto the pier, and we pull in a little line; then the wind blows us off again. Given how many lines we had out and that they were double and triple parted and since we don’ have a working winch, it takes us three hours of floating back and forth to shorten all the lines and get the boat to the pier.  

I get a few worried calls and emails asking us if the MARY is aground. Perplexing, until I learn that a similar tanker, the JOHN B. CADDELL, is aground on Staten Island, a cautionary tale of what can happen if a ship is not well tended before and during such a storm.

This is not us! Tanker JOHN B. CADDELL aground on Staten Island. Via Twitter

At dusk, some volunteers make it in. Jenny Kane, Amy Bucciferro, Paul Amico after inspecting the damage at the DUMBO ferry dock.

I tell Peter that PortSide had historic documents stored in one room in the shed. 

Peter looks startled, then irked at me and, as he told us weeks later, “This was news to me and I scrambled to rescue what I could.  Unlike riding out a storm on a ship, dealing with wet paper artifacts I was familiar with.  I had worked in museums for years, with collections stored in leaky basements, and had rescued a lot of paper ephemera after 9/11.  Fearing fused wet paper and mold, I turned the tables on Carolina and charged her to get as many dry sheets and towels as she could find fast.”

PortSide's archive of historic documents is somewhere beneath all this.

I kick in the door to the stevedore's lounge, and we all schlepp tables up the stevedore’s lounge (I find the height of the second floor oddly comforting after the flood).  Modern books we junk.  Peter begins a painstaking process of separating wet papers, blueprints and photographs, blotting them dry, interleaving them with sheets, weighing them down.  I am bushed and crash into my bunk. 

Peter works until 4 am, bringing things aboard and slowly toasting some near the galley stove.

Over the next several days, Peter covers most horizontal surfaces in the tanker with drying antique documents. “Some of the blue prints lost most of their blue to the water, and the modern pulp paper fared worse than the rag paper of the 1800s but in the end most of the important items in the collection, if a little worse for wear, were salvaged.”     

Wednesday, the Halloween that never was, Peter and I head into the shed to inspect more things.  

The hard-to-find vintage engine parts that could repair MARY’s engine have been submerged. Ditto all the historic artifacts from Todd Shipyard.  Ditto our electrical transformer. 

I make some calls and am told to douse the transformer in fresh water, dry it, and then spray it heavily with di-electric cleaner. We retrieve buckets of water from our rain barrels (there is no running water connection to the ship) and pour them over the transformer. I locate one outlet with power (which blessedly worked for a few days), plug in a fan and park it in front of the transformer. (10/27/19 update: The treatment above worked. We are still using this transformer!)

Drying our rinsed transformer. We were so lucky! Right after several days of drying, the power in the outlet went out. The ebbing waters pinned lots of dunnage around our transformer.

The engine parts are beyond us, and we turn to the artifacts.  

Once upon a time, Peter had carefully wrapped each one in paper and identified each with a number and a photo. That labeling system is gone. We unwrap it all and leave stuff to air out. I console myself with the thought that shipyard artifacts have likely been wet before.

An email arrives saying Red Hook restaurants are cooking their food at a community BBQ rather than have it be wasted, BYO charcoal, and Peter and I bike into Red Hook toting some charcoal.

I leave the port with my spirits high.  The ship is fine, the artifact loss was minimal. Irene had been a great preparatory experience; we had survived Sandy. 

A few blocks down Van Brunt my spirits drop. I was a photojournalist for some 15 years and worked in rough places overseas, and I recognize the signs of disaster.  A burm of garbage three to four feet high lines Van Brunt Street. Dazed and muddy people mill around at the corner of Pioneer Street amid the clatter of generators and a tangle of electrical cords.  

Peter remarks that it looks like a macabre Christmas. Santas, which had been stored in cellars, are now muddy and atop garbage heaps, or, at the bar Bait and Tackle, set up by the door like a dark joke.  In short, the mess ashore is bad, much worse than the damage to PortSide NewYork. I immediately decide that PortSide should come ashore to help our neighbors.   

More on that in the next installment.

PortSide NewYork would like to thank the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for their support during Hurricane Sandy while we were in their Red Hook port.

For our latest Sandy relief info, see our blogpost, follow us on Twitter.

Additional reporting and editing by Dan Goncharoff and Peter Rothenberg.

The kind of thing we prevented: how a vessel went up on a pier during Sandy.
Photo by Frank Yacino, crewmember of tug KRISTY ANN REINAUER

Labels: Brooklynresiliencesuperstorm SandyfloodportsurgePortSidemaritimeRed HookMary A. WhalenJohn B. Caddellhurricane Sandys