Are you kidding me?

jasperdog

jasperdog

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Here is a note from Admiral Helis:

"Plan is for all midshipmen to return on Sunday. That will put us in the best position to start second trimester. Delano ready to feed full complement starting Sunday. We have adequate lighting and hot water in the barracks. Hoping for power soon. Thanks for your understanding and support."
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Let me just say the first responders and utility company workers from around the region who are now working hard to restore order, sanity and some normalcy to the lives of the many affected residents in the area the Hurricane Sandy devastated have my full support and admiration. That said, there are now two things I do not understand or support publicly that are related: 1) running the NYC Marathon as scheduled through the same area; and 2) compelling ~700 young men and women to return to a campus that the most optimistic thing you can say in a public announcement is "Hoping for power soon." In the words of many a solid and admired leader, hope is never a reasonable substitute for either a plan or adequate resources.

One cannot help but wonder what MARAD would say about these sorts of ill considered actions and pronouncements if they were being put out by Superintendents they didn't like or who had publicly disagreed with them on important issues instead of being hand-picked by them and openly supportive of their Washington based agendas... Just as one can't help but wonder why no one ever suggested a West Point graduate and 0-6 was the ideal candidate to be the Superintendent of the USNA...

Of course maybe I've got it all wrong and this policy and decision really isn't coming from Wiley Hall at all and it's originating from Washington. However if that was the case wouldn't Administrator Matsuda once again at least grace the barracks with a cameo and "sleep" there for all of 5 hours to prove it was safe for the Regiment just like he did last spring after the CO poisoning incident, because that was so dramatically reassuring the last time?
 
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I agree

How do you complete your projects when you cannot turn on your computer or link to the internet. This puts all of the Mids in at a great disadvantage in completeing any of their assignmnets. Especially those that are just returning form their Sea Year and scrambling to print out their projects. Bad form KP administration.
 
No, I don't think he is kidding you. I think we will all see what a great group of Midshipmen and Plebes we have at Kings Point. They will all get through this, and they will have some "interesting" (to say the least) memories for having gone through it. All on campus grounds will be experiencing pretty much the same challenges...much like the unexpected challenges they will face at sea and or in the military after graduation. I have faith and confidence in the Midshipmen and leadership at KP to get through this and to get the job done.

My question is...what can we do to help?
 
Kram1 said:
No, I don't think he is kidding you. ... I have faith and confidence in the Midshipmen and leadership at KP to get through this and to get the job done. ...
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I used to share your faith in the leadership at KP ... right up to the time my own now graduated DS and 38 of his fellow midshipmen could have died in an incident involving CO poisoning last spring and little to no meaningful (IMO) corrective actions were done to preclude it from ever happening again.

As for interesting memories, many of those still at the academy already have many of those types of memories, after that CO incident the larger part of third company had to go over hill and dale to shower, etc. Putting 700+ young men and women into barracks and/or dorms without reliable power is not smart, nor is it good training to teach them how to be leaders for the maritime industry or the military. I'd find no comfort in the fact that as you rightly point out:

"All on campus grounds will be experiencing pretty much the same challenges."
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Indeed the smart mariner proactive guides his vessel in a manner that prudently steers his or her vessel away from the storm or at the very least away from the top right quadrant of the storm. Right now the area of Long Island, NYC, and NJ is basically the equivalent of the top right quadrant... If we are training the world's best mariners shouldn't we do so by showing them during that training how prudent leaders behave? Not damning the torpedos and steaming full speed ahead just because we have a great ship under us. Or as you correctly point out Kram1:

"what a great group of Midshipmen and Plebes we have at Kings Point"
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Jasperdog used to be the biggest defender of all the nonsense at KP because in the end it was all part of training leaders to be prepared to deal with any crisis with a cool head. The brush with death experience encountered by his DS and 38 others drastically altered his views about the competence of the decision makers at the Academy. It scares me greatly to see him saying, "don't be so sure this is in your mids best interest or that it's even been thought through! :frown:
 
While right to be concerned, you might want to consider that things on the ground are progressing more than you realize and that is why Adm Helis is having Mids return Sunday. Ft Schuyler- on the other side of the bridge- is starting back up Monday as well. The President of Maritime posted the following:
01 November 2012
MEMORANDUM FROM THE PRESIDENT
Subject: Update 01 November 2012 -5:00 PM

We are moving rapidly to ensure that students and faculty can return to campus on Sunday 04 November and classes can reconvene on Monday 05 November. Yesterday we restored normal power to most of the campus, brought up our email and phone servers and were able to start restoring heat and hot water to some buildings. The Facilities Department has been doing an amazing job effecting repairs and cleaning up the debris over the past two days.

While our restoration efforts were in full swing yesterday, we were asked by the Maritime Administration if we could support a request from Federal Emergency Management Agency to berth 600 first responders on the TS Empire State. This included 300 Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) members and 300 Health and Human Services (HHS) Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) members. As usual, Captain Rick Smith and the rest of the Maritime Team swung into quick action, and by the time the first 250 disaster relief workers arrived from as far away as California, we were ready to berth them on the ship and feed them before they deployed to the New York City and Long Island.

We have completed the inspection of the academic buildings, dormitories, and other buildings and foresee no problems reconvening classes on Monday 5 November. Students are able to return to campus Sunday, 4 November. Due to the FEMA footprint on campus this week and our ongoing maintenance and cleanup requirements, we would ask that students please delay their return to campus until Sunday afternoon if at all possible. We sincerely appreciate your cooperation.

I know many of our students and cadets have been involved in volunteer cleanup efforts in their own neighborhoods and there have been several articles in the press about their selfless contributions. I am very proud of them.

Please continue to monitor our website for updates. Voice recordings updates are available at 315-386-7072 and 718-409-5757. A reminder - no messages can be left on these numbers. In the event of an emergency please call the campus police at 718-409-7311.

We recognize that there are families in the Maritime Nation who have suffered great loss during this hurricane. Our thoughts are with them. If tragedy will delay a student’s return, please contact the Dean of Students and we will work with those students and their professors. Faculty and staff members should contact their supervisors and follow the established HR procedures.

Stay Safe,

RADM C
Wendi B Carpenter
Rear Admiral USN (ret)
President SUNY Maritime College
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Subsequently she posted an update todoay confirming that they will be up and runnign with classes and Regimental activities commencing first thing Monday morning. Additionally - I managed to talk with family members in Nassau County - they got power back tonight- things are still a mess, but they are starting to move forward. I suspect that Adm Helis and the staff at KP have a reasonable expectation that they- like their Ft Schuyler brethren on Throggs Neck will be able to resume operations by the end of the weekend.
 
That is considerably more information than we have received from KP. They have weighed many factors before determining they are ready to open rather than "hoping for the best... " And they HAVE power.
 
NY, NJ, CT are on the mend

I have witnessed the aftermath of Sandy firsthand in all the 5 Boros of NYC, NJ, CT, over the last 4 days.

During the same time I have been in contact with my Mid who's ship had to do an " about face" (180degress), in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean last week, and head back towards Europe, so as not to meet Sandy head on.

He has been delayed, diverted, postponed, inconvenienced, forced to change travel plans , lost a day or two off with friends, etc. No complaints at all. Safe and sound back on mainland now.

He was also one of those nearly asphyxiated in his room last March by the faulty hot water heater exhaust systems. That was not fun, but I believe that has been corrected after lessons learned the hard way.

My home power (and internet) was restored here in NY yesterday by a utility crew from Alabama. I am confident that with all the support coming in from around the country (saw utility trucks from Texas and Wisconsin also), and all the local utility and public works people working around the clock, USMMA can safely resume the 2nd trimester next week.
 
NYSBEAR: Glad to hear you are well and you are confident things will be fine to start classes at KP on Monday Morning. The letter that RADM Carpenter posted to the SUNY MC community is indeed good news. Of course SUNY MC is served by ConEd and on the other side of the bridge. As you well know, Kings Point is served by LIPA, but as you say there are indeed hundreds of extra crews now working around the clock to make things better. It would be "nice" if the leadership at USMMA could tell the families and Midshipmen more but I'll assume that scheduling of service restoration b LIPA follows the same approach as it does by the power utilities here in the DC metro which is they don't tell you anything until they know for sure.

The LIPA site as of this evening (11:30PM Friday Evening) shows ~ 1,000 customers in Kings Point (a village of 5,500 per the 2010 Census) still without power - though you can't tell if the power is on at USMMA or not. Hopefully that means it's on already.

Of course based on the Monologue tonight by David Letterman, it sounds as if NY is indeed fighting hard to be back to normal.

Good Luck to all, as it's clear to me the vast majority are not at all concerned and very, very confident in USMMA Leadership's path forward.

God Fair the Well Kings Point...

Let's just all hope you are all correct.
 
Lets try to not get our panties in a bunch. There are a few branches down... Power is back, and no one is starving anytime soon. But I'm sure the Adm. appreciates all the back seat driving based on information from the always truthful American media! I'm curious as to how people expect to be confident in their kids in traveling the world, working in a very adult industry, when they can't trust them to take care of themselves and figure out their own problems when a little bit of defecation hits the oscillation.
 
Drove my mid back to KP on Thursday morning for Football. Passed 113 bucket trucks from Western PA, Ohio, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Michigan along I-80 all heading for NY. Some trees were down in Great Neck and some lights didn't work because of the power outage. But everyone seemed to be out and about, there was more traffic than normal on Northern Blvd. But other than the lights not working and the long lines at the gas stations, it seemed like a pretty normal drive from Western PA to KP. Actually out of the several dozen I've made over the last 2+ years it was one of the easiest. There was no wait on any of the bridges and only 1 - 2 block detour in Great Neck. There were actually 4 bucket trucks working within site of the Vickery Gate. I hope it will be as easy next weekend, when we go to the final football game and pick my DS up so he can catch his ship and start sea year.

Power was restored to KP yesterday and was back on before the football team made it back from Union College. DS skyped us last night and said the hardest part he had was dealing with only 2 meals per day (which I understand is normal during breaks).

If I had not been there this week I might have thought the Academy was wrong in asking everyone to be back, but IMO I actually think it was a good decision this time.
 
A little perspective and not buying into media hype often serves one well in most cases.
 
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