The National Park Service incident management team overseeing Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts in New York and New Jersey completed its ninth day of operations yesterday. At present, 423 National Park Service employees are committed to the incident. Over the last nine days, employees from 114 National Park Service units have supported the response effort.

Director Jon Jarvis, Deputy Director Peggy O’Dell, Comptroller Bruce Sheaffer, and Northeast Regional Director Dennis Reidenbach visited the greater New York area yesterday, seeing firsthand the impact of Hurricane Sandy on the parks and taking time to speak with park staff and incident personnel.

Work continues at the sites listed below. Several areas have reopened – St. Paul’s Church, Sagamore Hill, Morristown, Edison, General Grant and Hamilton Grange.

• Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island – Park maintenance staff continued removing debris, filling a second 20-yard dumpster. A bobcat was used to pick up scattered heavy debris on Ellis Island. The lower windows of the main immigration building were boarded up.
• Grant’s Tomb, Hamilton Grange and St. Paul’s Church – A shed that was destroyed at Grant’s Tomb was broken down and removed. A wood chipper crew completed final cleanup around the church.
• Federal Hall and Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace – The sites have no assessed damage but will remain closed until further notice.
• African Burial Ground – The site remains closed. It sustained only minimal damage.
• Castle Clinton – Castle Clinton remains closed until further notice.
• Gateway - Debris, hazard tree removal and chipping operations were completed at Fort Tilden, but continued at Frank Charles Memorial Park. Debris removal and saw work continued at Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Debris cleanup and hazard tree removal have progressed to Tennessee Road on Staten Island; heavy equipment was used to remove debris at Battery Weed. The chapel at Sandy Hook was assessed for safety compliance. The headquarters building there is being cleaned out and items organized. About 4,000 gallons have been pumped out of lift station 47.
• Fire Island – Breach and overwash assessments and hazardous materials removal continued. Hand crews and heavy equipment were used to continue debris cleanup along the shoreline. Maintenance staff and an electrician started the restoration of the Lighthouse Annex.
• Morristown – All hazards were removed from Fort Nonsense trails. Hazard tree work continued on the Cross Estate grounds and on trails in Jockey Hollow. Crews assisted in locating and assessing downed phone lines along park roads.

More information on the response can be found at these websites:

• Hurricane response and recovery – A webpage with current information on the NPS response to Hurricane Sandy.
• Resource needs shopping list – A ”shopping list”  of incident management team positions that still need to be filled, updated daily.
• Hurricane Sandy relief fund – E&AA has set up a relief fund web page where you can make donations in support of employees who were affected by the storm.
• Facebook – A Facebook page managed by the IMT with updates on the response.
• Twitter – A Twitter page managed by the IMT with updates on the response.
• Flickr – A Flickr page managed by the IMT with images of the response.