Irene Leaves Economic Losses in New York

After the arrival of Hurricane Irene to NewYork, many citizens were surprised by the strength I had, Irene felt like a storm, hurricane winds did not do much damage in the city, however, the closure of public transport, which usually works 24 / 7, affected the economy of the big Apple.”Transportation is the economic and cultural life of the city. If the infrastructure does not work you have no food, can’t work, you can’t even get a medicine,” said Mitchell Moss, a city planner.

Starting again the largest transportation system in the world with its 6830 cars, almost 6000 metros and buses, is not immediate: it took eight hours to the close the system and it is expected to take considerably longer to reactivate it, so on Sunday nearly all the shops were closed as trains and buses were nort working. There was no way that the workers were displaced.

Some buses started working yesterday afternoon, although it was announced that the subway would not open until all the 22 lines were controlled to ensure safety, at night the council reported that all system with some exceptions and fewer trains than the usual, would be running at seven o’clock today. However, much of the suburban network Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road remained closed and are not expected to reopen until at least Tuesday or Wednesday, which will cause logistical problems and economic losses as workers depend on public transport to get to their jobs.

(MS)

Source: El País Newspaper