Sandy Crimps East Coast Gasoline

Ahead of Hurricane Sandy, refineries along the East Coast shut down and braced for the worst. With the storm gone, about half those refineries have come back on line, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. That will surely help motorists. But even before the storm, the East Coast was facing a chronic lack of gasoline, with stocks lower than they had been in more than 20 years.

As lines form outside gasoline stations, and some of them begin to run out of gasoline, the real problem on the East Coast isn’t the refineries. It’s the terminals—the giant storage depots surrounding New York Harbor where ships and rail cars unload refined products, and where gasoline piped up from the Gulf Coast gets collected. If you’ve ever flown into JFK or LaGuardia, these are the big clusters of white tanks you saw dotting the landscape south of the city.

The East Coast refines a lot of gasoline, but most of what it uses comes from somewhere else. These storage tanks are the crucial gathering point for the East Coast’s gasoline distribution system. Right now, they’re not working.

Most of those terminals took a direct hit from Sandy. Not only do they not have power, they’ve been badly damaged; many took on sea water and mud as they were banged around during the storm. At least two tanks have sprung leaks.

A facility owned by Motiva Enterprises, a joint venture of Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA:LN) and Saudi Refining, leaked about 336,000 gallons of diesel fuel that crews were busy containing on Thursday morning. Another tank at Kinder Morgan’s (KMI) 200-acre storage terminal just west of Staten Island in Carteret, N.J., was damaged when another tank was knocked into it during the storm. “I know that one tank hit another tank and that caused a tear in its side,” Kinder Morgan spokesman Joe Hollier said.

Carteret is the biggest of Kinder Morgan’s four terminals in the U.S. Northeast. The company is sending hundreds of workers to clean up and assess the damage and also bring in large generators to try to restore power. The company announced on Thursday that operations should resume within 48 hours.

One of the biggest terminals around New York Harbor, a 600-acre storage facility 10 miles south of Manhattan in Bayonne, N.J., suffered major damage, according to Dow Jones. The terminal is owned by New Orleans-based IMTT, which has not yet commented on the damage. Reached by phone Thursday, the Bayonne terminal manager said simply, “I’m only talking to the government,” and hung up.

With the terminals unable to accept more product, or load it onto trucks to deliver to area gas stations, the pipelines that connect to them have had to shut down. The Colonial Pipeline is the primary gasoline artery to the Northeast, carrying some 2.4 billion barrels a day of gasoline, diesel, and other fuels to the Northeast from the Gulf Coast. With nowhere to deposit that fuel, a huge chunk of the Colonial has been closed. Though Colonial’s operations have slowly begun to resume, the resulting pipeline closure has caused a huge back-up in the system that is rippling all the way down to the Gulf Coast.

“Supplies on the Gulf Coast are starting to back up and look for other outlets,” says Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, a consulting firm in Houston. Lipow estimates that at least half a dozen ships filled with oil or other refined products are floating outside New York Harbor, unable to deliver their cargo. With further refined products building up on the Gulf Coast, and fewer ships there to move them, the rates that ship owners are charging has nearly doubled in the last few days, according to Charles Martin of  MJLF & Associates, a Connecticut-based ship broker.

“The ship owners definitely have the upper hand right now,” says Martin. “I’ve never seen anything this extreme.” Most of the product—particularly diesel fuel—that would get piped up to the Northeast is now being sent to Europe, Martin said.

Despite all the disruption however, national gas prices are expected to continue to drop as demand remains low because of all the destruction Sandy caused. “This is a logistics and distribution problem, not a price problem,” Lipow says. “Prices have been falling around the country and will continue to do so.”

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Clinton calls for overhaul of Syrian opposition

ZAGREB (Reuters) – The United States called on Wednesday for an overhaul of Syria‘s opposition leadership, saying it was time to move beyond the Syrian National Council and bring in those “in the front lines fighting and dying”.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, signaling a more active stance by Washington in attempts to form a credible political opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said a meeting next week in Qatar would be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against him.

“This cannot be an opposition represented by people who have many good attributes but who, in many instances, have not been inside Syria for 20, 30, 40 years,” she said during a visit to Croatia.

“There has to be a representation of those who are in the front lines fighting and dying today to obtain their freedom.”

Clinton’s comments represented a clear break with the Syrian National Council (SNC), a largely foreign-based group which has been among the most vocal proponents of international intervention in the Syrian conflict.

U.S. officials have privately expressed frustration with the SNC’s inability to come together with a coherent plan and with its lack of traction with the disparate internal groups which have waged the 19-month uprising against Assad’s government.

Senior members of the SNC, Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other rebel groups ended a meeting in Turkey on Wednesday and pledged to unite behind a transitional government in coming months.

“It’s been our divisions that have allowed the Assad forces to reach this point,” Ammar al-Wawi, a rebel commander, told Reuters after the talks outside Istanbul.

“We are united on toppling Assad. Everyone, including all the rebels, will gather under the transitional government.”

Mohammad Al-Haj Ali, a senior Syrian military defector, told a news conference after the meeting: “We are still facing some difficulties between the politicians and different opposition groups and the leaders of the Free Syrian Army on the ground.”

Clinton said it was important that the next rulers of Syria were both inclusive and committed to rejecting extremism.

“There needs to be an opposition that can speak to every segment and every geographic part of Syria. And we also need an opposition that will be on record strongly resisting the efforts by extremists to hijack the Syrian revolution,” she said.

Syria’s revolt has killed an estimated 32,000. A bomb near a Shi’ite shrine in a suburb of Damascus killed at least six more people on Wednesday, state media and opposition activists said.

NEW LEADERSHIP

The meeting next week in Qatar’s capital Doha represents a chance to forge a new leadership, Clinton said, adding the United States had helped to “smuggle out” representatives of internal Syrian opposition groups to a meeting in New York last month to argue their case for inclusion.

“We have recommended names and organizations that we believe should be included in any leadership structure,” she told a news conference.

“We’ve made it clear that the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition. They can be part of a larger opposition, but that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice which must be heard.”

The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance.

It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance – a fact that Assad’s chief backer Russia says shows western powers are intent on determining Syria’s future.

Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.

Clinton said she regretted but was not surprised by the failure of the latest attempted ceasefire, called by international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi last Friday. Each side blamed the other for breaking the truce.

“The Assad regime did not suspend its use of advanced weaponry against the Syrian people for even one day,” she said.

“While we urge Special Envoy Brahimi to do whatever he can in Moscow and Beijing to convince them to change course and support a stronger U.N. action we cannot and will not wait for that.”

Clinton said the United States would continue to work with partners to increase sanctions on the Assad government and provide humanitarian assistance to those hit by the conflict.

(Additional reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley; editing by Andrew Roche)

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Clinton calls for overhaul of Syrian opposition

ZAGREB (Reuters) – The United States called on Wednesday for an overhaul of Syria‘s opposition leadership, saying it was time to move beyond the Syrian National Council and bring in those “in the front lines fighting and dying”.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, signaling a more active stance by Washington in attempts to form a credible political opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said a meeting next week in Qatar would be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against him.

“This cannot be an opposition represented by people who have many good attributes but who, in many instances, have not been inside Syria for 20, 30, 40 years,” she said during a visit to Croatia.

“There has to be a representation of those who are in the front lines fighting and dying today to obtain their freedom.”

Clinton’s comments represented a clear break with the Syrian National Council (SNC), a largely foreign-based group which has been among the most vocal proponents of international intervention in the Syrian conflict.

U.S. officials have privately expressed frustration with the SNC’s inability to come together with a coherent plan and with its lack of traction with the disparate internal groups which have waged the 19-month uprising against Assad’s government.

Senior members of the SNC, Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other rebel groups ended a meeting in Turkey on Wednesday and pledged to unite behind a transitional government in coming months.

“It’s been our divisions that have allowed the Assad forces to reach this point,” Ammar al-Wawi, a rebel commander, told Reuters after the talks outside Istanbul.

“We are united on toppling Assad. Everyone, including all the rebels, will gather under the transitional government.”

Mohammad Al-Haj Ali, a senior Syrian military defector, told a news conference after the meeting: “We are still facing some difficulties between the politicians and different opposition groups and the leaders of the Free Syrian Army on the ground.”

Clinton said it was important that the next rulers of Syria were both inclusive and committed to rejecting extremism.

“There needs to be an opposition that can speak to every segment and every geographic part of Syria. And we also need an opposition that will be on record strongly resisting the efforts by extremists to hijack the Syrian revolution,” she said.

Syria’s revolt has killed an estimated 32,000. A bomb near a Shi’ite shrine in a suburb of Damascus killed at least six more people on Wednesday, state media and opposition activists said.

NEW LEADERSHIP

The meeting next week in Qatar’s capital Doha represents a chance to forge a new leadership, Clinton said, adding the United States had helped to “smuggle out” representatives of internal Syrian opposition groups to a meeting in New York last month to argue their case for inclusion.

“We have recommended names and organizations that we believe should be included in any leadership structure,” she told a news conference.

“We’ve made it clear that the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition. They can be part of a larger opposition, but that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice which must be heard.”

The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance.

It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance – a fact that Assad’s chief backer Russia says shows western powers are intent on determining Syria’s future.

Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.

Clinton said she regretted but was not surprised by the failure of the latest attempted ceasefire, called by international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi last Friday. Each side blamed the other for breaking the truce.

“The Assad regime did not suspend its use of advanced weaponry against the Syrian people for even one day,” she said.

“While we urge Special Envoy Brahimi to do whatever he can in Moscow and Beijing to convince them to change course and support a stronger U.N. action we cannot and will not wait for that.”

Clinton said the United States would continue to work with partners to increase sanctions on the Assad government and provide humanitarian assistance to those hit by the conflict.

(Additional reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley; editing by Andrew Roche)

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Where You’re Not Likely to Get Cell Service Because of Sandy

It’s hard to tell exactly where the cell phone outages are happening without exact information from the wireless companies, but because of the way cell phone technology works, we know that the densest areas with the most power outages and the worst weather damage—i.e., downtown Manhattan—are where cell service is hurting the most. Here’s what we know: The Federal Communications Commission said Sandy knocked out 25 percent of all cell sites. As of Wednesday, Verizon said that 6 percent of its cell sites were still down, T-Mobile said that 20 percent of its New York City network was down and 10 percent was down in Washington, and AT&T declined to comment, reports The New York Times‘s Edward Wyatt. Those numbers might not sound huge, but because of the nature of the outages, they are enough to frustrate downtown Manhattanites. 

RELATED: The Pros and Cons of the Different Ways to Buy an iPhone 4S

The two biggest things that affect cell sites during storms are physical damage from wind and electricity. Both of those things happened during the storm over the last few days, especially in New York City and New Jersey, but all along the East Coast. Even with the power out in these areas, the sites can run on batteries and back up generators. Sprint has said its back-up power sources can last between 2 and 3 days, reports CNET’s Merguerite Reardon. In the meantime, these companies can send people out to refuel. But the F.C.C said to expect that things will get worse as some sites shut down and others overload with users. 

RELATED: The Little Luxuries of Life Without a Cell Phone

Then there’s all the water that got into the cell towers, possibly causing damage and requiring repairs that might involve replacing parts. Those fixes will take longer because they can only happen once the water has cleared out. The cell phone companies have asked the city to help them pump out the water, according to Reuters yesterday. 

RELATED: The Most Unbelievable but Real Pictures of Sandy’s Destruction

The factors are all impacting Lower Manhattan, where, anecdotally, cell service is nonexistent. “Even charged cell phones south of 29th Street get no service at all,” wrote the ever-more-uncomfortable in-New-York Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish. It feels like that because much of downtown still has no power and there are a lot of people trying to use the few remaining operational cell sites. But that alone doesn’t mean that there is “no service at all” because of the way cell phone infrastructure works, as Reardon explains it:

If a cell site goes down, then customers in that area may not receive any service. And in rural areas where there are fewer cell sites, that’s more likely. But in places like New York City, where there are hundreds of cell sites in relatively close proximity, users may be able pick up signals from adjacent cell sites. This is likely why people won’t have service on one city block, but they will if they move in one direction or another.

However, with fewer cell sites, the ones still kicking are getting overloaded with refugee phone users, making it harder for customers to get calls and texts through. To combat these issues, T-Mobile and AT&T announced they would share networks in storm-damaged areas of New York and New Jersey. That should alleviate things a little, but until the power returns, New Yorkers can expect more of the same patchy service they’ve been getting. And even then, the cell companies will likely have some water damage repairs to do. 

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“A Late Quartet” Review: classical-music drama gets soapy but actors avoid the false notes

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “A Late Quartet,” as it turns out, has more than one meaning: The film’s musicians spend most of the movie grappling with Beethoven’s Opus 131, the String Quartet No. 14 in C# Minor, which was one of the composer’s “late quartets,” completed the year before his death.

But the title also refers to a foursome of players whose relationship as a performing entity could very well reach its demise at any moment. When cellist Peter (Christopher Walken) is diagnosed with Parkinson’s, he announces his intention to leave the Fugue String Quartet, which has just celebrated its 25th anniversary. The news rocks Peter’s colleagues, all of whom are decades younger, and the impending seismic shift exposes unspoken rivalries and frustrations among the rest of the group.

For second violinist Robert (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the shake-up in the roster inspires him to demand that he take first chair on some pieces. The idea that Robert wants to be less Pip and more Gladys Knight completely rankles the quartet’s precise and arrogant first violinist, Daniel (Mark Ivanir). Robert‘s wife Juliette (Catherine Keener), who plays viola, can barely process her grief over the illness of her mentor Peter before finding herself stuck between the conflicting demands of Daniel (her former lover) and Robert.

Complicating matters further is the fact that Robert and Juliette’s daughter Alexandra (Imogen Poots), a talented violinist in her own right, is currently studying under both Peter and Daniel – and possibly nurturing feelings of her own for the latter while also nursing resentment toward her globe-trotting parents for being absent during so much of her childhood.

So yes, “A Late Quartet” may ensconce itself in the elite and heady world of classical music – down to the cameos by cellist Nina Lee and mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter – but the character dynamics could easily find a home on The CW. Nonetheless, if you’re in the mood to mix highbrow trappings with some bitter arguments, infidelity and face-slapping, screenwriters Yaron Zilberman (who also directs) and Seth Grossman keep things allegro con brio throughout.

Hoffman and Keener, who are pretty much the William Powell and Myrna Loy of indie movies at this point, bring their shared screen experience to their portrayal of a married couple who seem perfectly matched but whose longstanding relationship is patched together with compromises and unspoken desires. The moment where Robert seeks Juliette’s assurance that he’s skilled enough to play first violin, and she hesitates to agree, is a powerfully devastating marital moment.

Ivanir makes his character convincing as both a cold taskmaster and a hot-blooded romantic, and Poots explodes with youthful passion and indecision, all the while rocking a deadly accurate privileged-New-Yorker accent that many of her fellow U.K. thespians would envy.

Christopher Walken manages to be as compelling here as in “Seven Psychopaths” while playing an altogether different character. Walken may have reached the point in his career where he inspires impersonators, but both of his current films remind audiences that he still has a deep well of emotion that make him more than just the sum of his trademark delivery.

“A Late Quartet” may be better suited for the back-balcony crowd who wears jeans and comfortable shoes to the symphony rather than the folks who know their Kochel listings by heart, but sometimes it’s worth sitting through forgettable music just to watch a great group of players plying their trade.

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Alternative Therapies Help Many Arthritis Patients

Researchers have confirmed that complementary and alternative therapy (CAT) can help many arthritis patients manage their condition. Their results suggest that the majority of patients who used CAT plus prescribed medication believed they benefited from the alternative treatment.

The scientists published their findings in the November 2012 issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing. The lead author is Professor Nada Alaaeddine of the University of St. Joseph in Beirut, Lebanon. The team studied 250 patients ages 20 to 90, according to Medical News Today. Around one in three suffered from osteoarthritis. The others had rheumatoid arthritis.

The cause of rheumatoid arthritis remains unknown, but experts consider it an autoimmune disease that leads to inflammation of joints and surrounding tissues, PubMed reports. Treatments in traditional medicine include anti-inflammatory drugs, disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, antimalarial medications, corticosteroids, and biologic agents that control how the immune system works. Surgery is sometimes necessary for severe joint problems.

Osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis, according to the Mayo Clinic. It develops when protective cartilage on the ends of bones wears away over the years. Patients typically use acetaminophen, NSAIDs, and narcotics for pain relief. Some undergo physical therapy, wear braces or shoe inserts, or receive training in managing chronic pain. Injections into the joints are also part of traditional medicine. Some individuals require surgery to realign bones or replace joints.

The Beirut scientists found that 23 percent of the patients used CATs in addition to prescribed drugs. Nearly two-thirds considered CAT beneficial, citing improved sleeping patterns and activity levels, plus lower pain intensity.

The CAT utilized most was herbal therapy (83 percent). Others included exercise (22 percent), massage (12 percent), acupuncture (3 percent), yoga and meditation (3 percent), and dietary supplements (3 percent). Twenty-four percent sought medical care for side effects that proved reversible. Surprisingly, 59 percent did not mention using CATs to their healthcare providers.

Before CAT use, 12 percent said they had no pain. Afterward, the number was 43 percent. The percentage of those who slept all night increased from 9 to 66 percent.

Prior to using CATs, 3 percent of patients said pain didn’t limit them. Afterward, the figure rose to 12 percent. The percentage who reported that they could do all activities, but with pain, increased from 26 to 52 percent.

The researchers stressed that when considering CAT, patients should discuss the various therapies with their healthcare providers. This is important because of potential side effects and due to possible interactions between herbal products and prescription medications.

For the last 10 years, I have experienced significant pain from osteoarthritis but have successfully managed the illness. The physicians treating me continue to believe that alternative therapies help many arthritis patients. As a result, they have encouraged me to try massage, yoga, meditation, acupuncture, and certain dietary supplements along with traditional medical treatments.

Vonda J. Sines has published thousands of print and online health and medical articles. She specializes in diseases and other conditions that affect the quality of life.

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Child benefit cuts ‘cost £50,000′

31 October 2012 Last updated at 20:02 ET

Some families may lose as much as £50,000 over the next 18 years due to cuts in child benefit, the accountancy firm PwC says.

The government will start to withdraw, or cut altogether, child benefit from families where an adult earns more than £50,000 a year.

The benefit clawback will start on 7 January 2013 and will affect about one million families.

PwC says their potential loss could be substantial.

“Many people affected by the child benefit cuts have probably not considered what the true cost will be to them over time,” said Alex Henderson, a tax partner at PwC.

Losses rack up

Child benefit is currently paid at the rate of £20.30 a week for the first child, and then £13.40 a week for each child after that.

It lasts until each child reaches 16, or 18 if they are still in full-time education, and in some cases until they are 20.

Continue reading the main story

• Child benefit is a tax-free payment that is aimed at helping parents cope with the cost of bringing up children


• One parent can claim £20.30 a week for an eldest or only child and £13.40 a week for each of their other children


• The payments apply to all children aged under 16 and in some cases until they are 20 years old


• The system is administered by HM Revenue and Customs, which pays out to nearly 7.9 million families, with 13.7 million children

PwC took two hypothetical families to see how much money they might lose, if all their benefits were withdrawn because one of the adults earned more than the forthcoming upper limit of £60,000 a year.

In one family, there were two children aged 1 and 3 at the start of 2013, currently receiving £1,752 a year in total.

In the other, there were three children aged 1, 3 and 5, currently receiving £2,449 a year in total.

PwC worked out that the two-child family stood to lose just under £39,000 in total, by the time the youngest child turned 18, while the three-child family would lose rather more at £50,700.

The calculations assumed that without the clawback, the families’ benefits would have risen in line with the consumer prices index, at a rate of 2.5% in 2013 and then 2% thereafter until 2029.

‘Grossly unfair’

Carol, a mother of three from Southampton, told the BBC News website that she was shocked at how the sums involved would add up over the years.

“We currently receive £2,260 a year, we are not on the breadline but it is the equivalent of paying for a family holiday,” she said.

“The change is grossly unfair. We decided that one of us should stay at home to look after the family, but we are being penalised,” she added.

She said her complaint to her MP had been channelled up to ministers but the reply had been that the cutback she faces was justified because it would help maintain the benefits for lower-paid claimants.

HMRC is starting to send out letters this week targeted at about one million child benefit recipients, who it thinks are also in households where someone earns more than £50,000 a year.

The letters warn them that they may lose some or all of their child benefit next year if they or their partner’s earnings are above that limit.

The letters offer the recipients a choice – tell the Revenue about the family’s income, using the self-assessment system if necessary, so the taxman can calculate the extra tax charge; or give up claiming the child benefit altogether.

The Revenue does make it clear that in families where someone earns between £50,000 and £60,000, it will always be to their advantage to keep on claiming the benefit.

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Hurricane’s death toll rises to 65 in Caribbean

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — As Americans braced Sunday for Hurricane Sandy, Haiti was still suffering.

Officials raised the storm-related death toll across the Caribbean to 65, with 51 of those coming in Haiti, which was pelted by three days of constant rains that ended only on Friday.

As the rains stopped and rivers began to recede, authorities were getting a fuller idea of how much damage Sandy brought on Haiti. Bridges collapsed. Banana crops were ruined. Homes were underwater. Officials said the death toll might still rise.

“This is a disaster of major proportions,” Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe told The Associated Press, adding with a touch of hyperbole, “The whole south is under water.”

The country’s ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides are especially vulnerable to flooding. The bulk of the deaths were in the southern part of the country and the area around Port-au-Prince, the capital, which holds most of the 370,000 Haitians who are still living in flimsy shelters as a result of the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Santos Alexis, mayor of the southern city of Leogane, said Sunday that the rivers were receding and that people were beginning to dry their belongings in the sun.

“Things are back to being a little quiet,” Alexis said by telephone. “We have seen the end.”

Sandy also killed 11 in Cuba, where officials said it destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of houses. Deaths were also reported in Jamaica, the Bahamas and Puerto Rico. Authorities in the Dominican Republic said the storm destroyed several bridges and isolated at least 130 communities while damaging an estimated 3,500 homes.

Jamaica’s emergency management office on Sunday was airlifting supplies to marooned communities in remote areas of four badly impacted parishes.

In the Bahamas, Wolf Seyfert, operations director at local airline Western Air, said the domestic terminal of Grand Bahamas‘ airport received “substantial damage” from Sandy’s battering storm surge and would need to be rebuilt.

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Hurricane’s death toll rises to 65 in Caribbean

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — As Americans braced Sunday for Hurricane Sandy, Haiti was still suffering.

Officials raised the storm-related death toll across the Caribbean to 65, with 51 of those coming in Haiti, which was pelted by three days of constant rains that ended only on Friday.

As the rains stopped and rivers began to recede, authorities were getting a fuller idea of how much damage Sandy brought on Haiti. Bridges collapsed. Banana crops were ruined. Homes were underwater. Officials said the death toll might still rise.

“This is a disaster of major proportions,” Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe told The Associated Press, adding with a touch of hyperbole, “The whole south is under water.”

The country’s ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides are especially vulnerable to flooding. The bulk of the deaths were in the southern part of the country and the area around Port-au-Prince, the capital, which holds most of the 370,000 Haitians who are still living in flimsy shelters as a result of the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Santos Alexis, mayor of the southern city of Leogane, said Sunday that the rivers were receding and that people were beginning to dry their belongings in the sun.

“Things are back to being a little quiet,” Alexis said by telephone. “We have seen the end.”

Sandy also killed 11 in Cuba, where officials said it destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of houses. Deaths were also reported in Jamaica, the Bahamas and Puerto Rico. Authorities in the Dominican Republic said the storm destroyed several bridges and isolated at least 130 communities while damaging an estimated 3,500 homes.

Jamaica’s emergency management office on Sunday was airlifting supplies to marooned communities in remote areas of four badly impacted parishes.

In the Bahamas, Wolf Seyfert, operations director at local airline Western Air, said the domestic terminal of Grand Bahamas‘ airport received “substantial damage” from Sandy’s battering storm surge and would need to be rebuilt.

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In hurricane, Twitter proves a lifeline despite pranksters

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – As Hurricane Sandy pounded the U.S. Atlantic coast on Monday night, knocking out electricity and Internet connections, millions of residents turned to Twitter as a part-newswire, part-911 hotline that hummed through the night even as some websites failed and swathes of Manhattan fell dark.

But the social network also became a fertile ground for pranksters who seized the moment to disseminate rumors and Photoshopped images, including a false tweet Monday night that the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange was submerged under several feet of water.

The exchange issued a denial, but not before the tweet was circulated by countless users and reported on-air by CNN, illustrating how Twitter had become the essential – but deeply fallible – spine of information coursing through real-time, major media events.

But a year after Twitter gained attention for its role in the rescue efforts in tsunami-stricken Japan, the network seemed to solidify its mainstream foothold as government agencies, news outlets and residents in need turned to it at the most critical hour.

Beginning late Sunday, government agencies and officials, from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo(@NYGovCuomo) to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (@FEMA) to @NotifyNYC, an account handled by New York City’s emergency management officials, issued evacuation orders and updates.

As the storm battered New York Monday night, residents encountering clogged 9-1-1 dispatch lines flooded the Fire Department’s @fdny Twitter account with appeals for information and help for trapped relatives and friends.

One elderly resident needed rescue in a building in Manhattan Beach. Another user sent @fdny an Instagram photo of four insulin shots that she needed refrigerated immediately. Yet another sought a portable generator for a friend on a ventilator living downtown.

Emily Rahimi, who manages the @fdny account by herself, according to a department spokesman, coolly fielded dozens of requests, while answering questions about whether to call 311, New York’s non-emergency help line, or Consolidated Edison.

At the Red Cross of America’s Washington D.C. headquarters, in a small room called the Digital Operations Center, six wall-mounted monitors display a stream of updates from Twitter and Facebook and a visual “heat map” of where posts seeking help are coming from.

The heat map informed how the Red Cross‘s aid workers deployed their resources, said Wendy Harman, the Red Cross director of social strategy.

The Red Cross was also using Radian6, a social media monitoring tool sold by Salesforce.com, to spot people seeking help and answer their questions.

“We found out we can carry out the mission of the Red Cross from the social Web,” said Harman, who hosted a brief visit from President Barack Obama on Tuesday.

SPREADING INFORMATION

Twitter, which in the past year has heavily ramped up its advertising offerings and features to suit large brand marketers like Pepsico Inc and Procter & Gamble, suddenly found itself offering its tools to new kind of client on Monday: public agencies that wanted help spreading information.

For the first time, the company created a “#Sandy” event page – a format once reserved for large ad-friendly media events like the Olympics or Nascar races – that served as a hub where visitors could see aggregated information. The page displayed manually- and algorithmically-selected tweets plucked from official accounts like those of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, who was particularly active on the network.

Agencies like the Maryland Emergency Management Agency and the New York Mayor’s Office also used Twitter’s promoted tweets – an ad product used by advertisers to reach a broader consumer base – to get out the word.

The company said offering such services for free to government agencies was one of several initiatives, including a service that broadcasts location-specific alerts and public announcements based on a Twitter user’s postal code.

“We learned from the storm and tsunami in Japan that Twitter can often be a lifeline,” said Rachael Horwitz, a Twitter spokeswoman.

Jeannette Sutton, a sociologist at the University of Colorado who has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security to study social media uses in disaster management, said government agencies have been skeptical until recently about using social media during natural disasters.

“There’s a big problem with whether it’s valid, accurate information out there,” Sutton said. “But if you’re not part of the conversation, you’re going to be missing out.”

As the hurricane hit one of the most wired regions in the country, news outlets also took advantage of the smartphone users who chronicled rising tides on every flooded block. On Instagram, the photo-sharing website, witnesses shared color-filtered snapshots of floating cars, submerged gas stations and a building shorn of its facade at a rate of more than 10 pictures per second, Instagram founder Kevin Systrom told Poynter.org on Tuesday.

Many of the images were republished in the live coverage by news websites and aired on television broadcasts.

LIES SLAPPED DOWN

But by late Monday, fake images began to circulate widely, including a picture of a storm cloud gathering dramatically over the Statue of Liberty and a photoshopped job of a shark lurking in a submerged residential neighborhood. The latter image even surfaced on social networks in China.

Then there was the slew of fabricated message from @comfortablysmug, the Twitter account that claimed the NYSE was underwater. The account is owned by Shashank Tripathi, the hedge fund investor and campaign manager for Christopher Wight, the Republican candidate to represent New York’s 12th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Tripathi, who did not return emails by Reuters seeking comment, apologized Tuesday night for making a “series of irresponsible and inaccurate tweets” and resigned from Wight’s campaign.

His identity was first reported by Jack Stuef of BuzzFeed.

Around 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Tripathi began deleting many of his Hurricane Sandy tweets. Tripathi’s friend, @theAshok, defended Tripathi, telling Reuters on Twitter: “People shouldn’t be taking “news” from an anonymous twitter account seriously.”

Tripathi’s @comfortablysmug’s Twitter stream, which is followed by business journalists, bloggers and various New York personalities, had been a well-known voice in digital circles, but mostly for his 140-character-or-less criticisms of the Obama administration, often accompanied by the hashtag, #ObamaIsn’tWorking.

On Tuesday, New York City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr. appeared to threaten Tripathi with prosecution when he tweeted that he hoped Tripathi was “less smug and comfortable cuz I’m talking to Cy,” presumably referring to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.

For its part, Twitter said that it would not have considered suspending the account unless it received a request from a law enforcement agency.

“We don’t moderate content, and we certainly don’t want to be in a position of deciding what speech is OK and what speech is not,” said Horwitz, Twitter’s spokeswoman.

But Ben Smith, the editor at Buzzfeed, which outed Tripathi, said Twitter’s credibility would not be affected by rumormongers because netizens often self-correct and identify falsehoods.

“They used to say a lie will travel halfway around the world before the truth puts its shoes on, but in the Twitter world, that’s not true anymore,” Smith said. “The lies get slapped down really fast.”

For Smith, the ability to disseminate information via Twitter and Facebook on Monday night became perhaps even more important than his Web publication, which enjoyed one of its better nights in readership but went dark when the blackout crippled the site’s servers in downtown Manhattan.

Buzzfeed’s staff quickly began publishing on Tumblr instead, and Smith personally took over Buzzfeed’s Twitter account to stay in the thick of the conversation.

“Our view of the world is that social distribution is the key thing,” Smith said. “We’re in the business of creating content that people want to share, more than the business of maintaining a website.”

(Reporting By Gerry Shih in San Francisco and Jennifer Ablan and Felix Salmon in New York; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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