Between the Bridges in Broad Channel

Between the Bridges

by Peter Mahon

February 4th, 2016

THE TRUTH AND SNOW ARE OUT THERE!

The Blizzard of 2016 blew into our Broad Channel community last month and departed after depositing a record setting 30+ inches of the white stuff.  Not surprisingly, arriving on a full moon, the Nor-Easter caused more than a little concern as to the severity of the tidal flooding that would accompany the nor’easter.  Facebook and Twitter postings were awash with dire warnings that Saturday morning’s high tide would be similar to Irene and Saturday evening’s high tide would be catastrophic like Sandy.  One individual actually started to relocate furnishings from the first to the second floor of their house. Thankfully, the multiple tidal flooding, which was sustained over 3 separate weekend high tides, although or Sandy

Having avoided the rumored catastrophic tidal flooding, my attention then turned to self-amusement as I parked myself near our second floor window which looks straight up West 12^th Road from the bay end of the block and laughed myself silly as the DSNY contracted little old pickup trucks with plows attached attempted to clear the roadway inundated with snow to a depth that would give a much larger pay loader problems. The few attempts made all resulted in the lilliputian trucks advancing no more than halfway down the street removing very little snow.  As an aside, West 11^th, 12^th  and 13^th Roads were ultimately plowed clean Monday morning by the private contractors working on the new bulkheads at the bottom of those blocks and by the time Monday evening rolled around, residents were once again parking on their block!  My wife Grace commented that it reminded her of a children’s book…”The little snowplow pickup that couldn’t”  That being said, the Blizzard of 2016 is now in the history books and all the local supermarkets, hardware stores and area car washes will be sending thank you cards to wherever it is that big old Nor’easter go to retire!

Speaking of thank you cards, our local celebrity groundhog, Staten Island Chuck 2.0 sent a big old thank you card to Mayor de Blasio for his not attending the groundhog festivities in Richmond County earlier this week.  You may remember Mayor de Blasio fumbled Staten Island Chuck 1.0 back in 2014 after a zookeeper placed it in his hands. The animal dropped to the ground, and within a week, it was dead.  Our Mayor was otherwise preoccupied out in Iowa where the Team Hillary team relegated him to knocking on doors of voters to drum up support for candidate Clinton.  Turns out many of the individuals he visited had no idea who de Blasio was!  That had to be an ego bruiser for the big guy.

Being a huge X-Files fan (I have watched all 202 episodes over its 10 year season) I was a really happy camper when the Fox network recently started a brand new 6 episode X-Files that has once again, tapped into public mistrust of governments and large institutions while happily embracing a myriad of conspiracy theories and spirituality.  Who knows, if the truth is really out there, maybe this time round, Mulder and Scully will find it!

Broad Channel – why would anyone want to live anywhere else?