Inside A FEMA Disaster Camp for Sandy Victims: Bitter cold... "We Got Fu**ed"

Photos taken by Brian Sotelo of the tent city set up at Monmouth Park in Oceanport by FEMA for victims of Sandy.

OCEANPORT — As he lights up a Marlboro and takes a slow drag before exhaling, Brian Sotelo is a man who has finally reached his breaking point.

Anger drips from every word as he peers out at the tops of the white tents rising over the trees in the distance. The depth of despair in his eyes is difficult to fathom.

And he makes it clear he’s was not going down without a fight.

We stood and talked in the cool morning air a short distance up the road after security at the front gate threatened to have our cars removed outside the entrance to what Sotelo’s identification tag calls “Camp Freedom,” even though it more closely resembles a prison camp.

A Seaside Heights resident who was at Pine Belt Arena in Toms River with his wife and three kids a half-hour before the shelter opened as superstorm Sandy approached last week, Sotelo was part of a contingent shifted on Wednesday to this makeshift tent city in the parking lot across Oceanport Avenue from Monmouth Park.

“Sitting there last night you could see your breath,” said Sotelo. “At (Pine Belt) the Red Cross made an announcement that they were sending us to permanent structures up here that had just been redone, that had washing machines and hot showers and steady electric, and they sent us to tent city. We got fucked."

“The elections are over and here we are. There were Blackhawk helicopters flying over all day and night. They have heavy equipment moving past the tents all night.”

Welcome to the part of the disaster where people start falling through the cracks.

No media is allowed inside the fenced complex, which houses operations for JCP&L’s army of workers from out of the area. The FEMA website indicated on Monday that there had been a shelter for first responders, utility and construction workers to take a break, although the compound now contains a full-time shelter operated by the state Department of Human Services.

Sotelo scrolls through the photos he took inside the facility as his wife, Renee, huddles for warmth inside a late-model Toyota Corolla stuffed with possessions, having to drive out through the snow and slush to tell their story. The images on the small screen include lines of outdoor portable toilets, of snow and ice breaching the bottom of the tent and an elderly woman sitting up, huddled in blankets.

 “My 6-year-old daughter Angie was a premie and has a problem regulating her body temperature,” Sotelo noted. “Until 11 (Wednesday) night they had no medical personnel at all here, not even a nurse. After everyone started complaining and they found out we were contacting the press, they brought people in. Every time we plugged in an iPhone or something, the cops would come and unplug them. Yet when they moved us in they laid out cable on the table and the electricians told us they were setting up charging stations. But suddenly there wasn’t enough power.”

All of this is merely the last straw for a 46-year-old on disability, with two rods and 22 staples in his back.

“The staff at the micro-city are providing for the needs of all the evacuees,” said Nicole Brossoie, spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services. “Each day there is transportation to the pharmacy for prescription medications, if needed. There are ADA (handicapped-accessible) toilets and showers on site.

“There were concerns with the heat when evacuees first arrived. Those issues were resolved within a couple of hours by adding more heaters.”

Sotelo’s seen the home he rents on Kearney Avenue even though residents have yet to be allowed back, having been enlisted as a driver for the Red Cross.

He was on the barrier islands the day after the storm, as a matter of fact. There had been a foot of water in his place. That’s it. And now he’s left to wonder why he’s still not allowed back.

Even without gas or electric, he figures it has to be better than this place.

“Everybody is angry over here. It’s like being prison,” said Sotelo, who grew up in Wayne. “I’ve been working since I was 10. I’ve been on my own since I was 16. And for things to be so bad that it’s pissing me off, that tells you something.”

After a night of restless sleep in which his cot actually broke at one point, landing him on the floor, what Sotelo wants are answers and action. He wants to go home, and until that happens he wants a little respect.

Finally, he tosses his cigarette butt aside and sidles back into the driver’s seat of his car, ready to head back through the gates of the encampment, as confused and frustrated as ever about his future.

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Shallow 6.6 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Northern Region of Myanmar

November 11, 2012 – MYANMAR – A 6.6 magnitude earthquake struck a mountainous region near Mandalay, Myanmar early Sunday morning. 

The earthquake had a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles) and struck just 116 miles from Mandalay, Myanmar. The earthquake was downgraded by the USGS from a 7.0 event. There have been no initial reports of damage issued thus far but that is expected to change. The earthquake was followed by a strong series of aftershocks and low-level tsunami warnings went out for the Indian Ocean. 

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UPDATE:   The death toll from the 6.8-magnitude quake included four labourers on a bridge and two people killed in a monastery collapse in an area north of Mandalay, Myanmar’s second biggest city, the aid group said in a report.

It said a further six people were killed in Sint Ku township in Sagaing region, while one died in Mandalay.

“According to the information we have so far, two people died and three were injured because of the earthquake, while five are still missing,” the official in the capital Naypyidaw told AFP, asking not to be named.

He said the missing were workers flung into the Irrawaddy river when the quake shook the bridge they were building in an area north of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city.

One man died and three were injured by buildings collapsing in a small town in central Sagaing region. A woman was also killed by falling debris from a brick wall in a village north of Mandalay.

The shallow 6.8-magnitude quake hit around 116 kilometres (72 miles) north of Mandalay at a depth of just 10 kilometres, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. It initially put the magnitude of the quake at 7.0.

It was followed by a series of strong aftershocks.

“I ran from my bed carrying my daughter out to the street. There were many people in the road. Some were shouting and others felt dizzy,” Mandalay resident San Yu Kyaw told AFP by telephone.

“People are now scared of more earthquakes. Especially those who live or run businesses in high-rise buildings are desperate and don’t know what to do,” he said.

Construction standards are generally poor in the country formerly known as Burma, one of Asia’s most impoverished nations.

A large crack stretching from the second to the sixth floor of Mandalay’s highest building, the 25-storey Mann Myanmar Plaza, appeared after the quake, a local resident told AFP.

He said people were afraid to enter the structure and it remains closed.

The USGS issued a yellow alert, saying “some casualties and damage are possible” but that the impact should be relatively localised.

The quake hit at 7:42 am (0112 GMT) and was followed by two shallow 5.0-magnitude aftershocks within 20 minutes, according to the USGS.

“The quake was quite strong. I was shopping in the market at the time and I saw women crying in fear when they felt it. We expect more quakes are coming. Everybody is afraid,” said 23-year-old Win Win Nwe, a resident in the small town of Shwebo, north of Mandalay.

She said there were fears that several people had been injured in a nearby town.

It comes little more than a week before US President Barack Obama is due in Myanmar on a historic visit, as the West begins to roll back sanctions to reward a series of dramatic political reforms under President Thein Sein.

The quake was felt in neighbouring Thailand, including in the capital Bangkok, according to reports on social media websites.

It struck around 572 kilometres east of the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, one of the world’s biggest cities.

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Earthquake Rattles Eastern Kentucky

Updated at 5:40 p.m. ET: A 4.3-magnitude earthquake struck eight miles west of Whitesburg, Ky., early Saturday afternoon, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

The epicenter of the shallow, light earthquake was 0.7 miles deep under the Appalachian Mountains town of Blackey, near the Virginia border, the agency said.

There were no immediate reports of damage in the eastern Kentucky area.

The tremor was felt from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Atlanta, Ga., USGS geophysicist Paul Caruso in Denver told NBC News.

"Normally, we don't expect major damage with this kind of intensity," but it's "not out of the question" that there could be some -- usually, major damage is expected when magnitude is 5.5 or higher, Caruso said.

Whitesburg police and fire officials told NBC News late Saturday afternoon that after making round they had no visible damage, only people calling to report that they "felt jolts."

Earlier, the Letcher County Sheriff's office said it was still assessing the quake but had no reports of damage or deaths.

Nick Howell, at Parkway Inn Hotel in Whitesburg told NBC News he felt light jolts but nothing serious. There was no visible damage outside, he said.

Most Kentucky temblors historically have occurred in the western portion of the state, near the New Madrid seismic zone, the USGS says.

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Numerous Reports of Mysterious Booms and Strange Lights Over South Carolina

Several months ago I wrote an article entitled “Investigation Continues Into Source of Strange Michigan Area ‘Explosions’ and Radiation Spikes,” where I reported on the mysterious sounds and vibrations felt by countless individuals all over the state of Michigan. In this case, the corporate media, law enforcement, and the military typically tried to downplay the anomalies, even to the point of arresting activist journalists for appearing at the local military base with questions as to the nature of the disturbances.

In Michigan, residents all across the state and into Indiana, reported hearing loud explosions which actually rocked the ground hard enough to shake their houses. Bob Powell of The Truth Is Viral, who lives in the area, and is himself a military veteran, described the “explosions” as being similar to the firing of artillery both in sound and impact.

Recently, however, almost exactly the same kind of incident has occurred in South Carolina, spanning the entire Pee Dee region and all the way into North Carolina. On the evening of November 5, around 7:30-7:45 p.m., various law enforcement and local news agencies were contacted by individuals living in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina in reference to a loud “boom” that was large enough to shake their houses.

The reports were numerous around Pamplico, Johnsonville, Marion, Hemingway, Aynor, Nichols, Hannah, and Mullins. However, as stated earlier, reports also came from as far away as Evergreen, North Carolina.

Marion County dispatchers alone received more than 100 calls in ten minutes related to the “booms.”

The US Geological Society has publicly stated that there was no seismic activity in the region on these dates and emergency dispatchers confirmed that there had been no plane crash.

Very soon after the event, Johnsonville Police Chief Ron Douglas, claimed the “booms” were “from a handful of military aircraft” that had broken the speed of sound.

However, this explanation, which was rapidly adopted by the local media, does not hold water. For one thing, most of the individuals I have spoken to (as well as myself) have heard jets break the sound barrier before and both the sound and the impact of the mysterious “booms” were much different than that of jets breaking the sound barrier.

Secondly, if the jets were the cause of the sound and of the heavy vibrational impact that shook so many houses, the jets themselves would have had to be flying very low. But, if the jets were flying low enough for this type of effect to be achieved, witnesses would have also been able to hear the jets. 

 This writer can personally attest to the intensity of the “booms” as I, myself, was in the area at the time of the incident. The sound, much like what Bob Powell described sounded much more like artillery than any other comparable sound. There was no lead up to the shaking, it was simply as if one was experiencing the vibrations of an explosion.

The impact was so strong that one way to describe hearing and feeling the impact from inside the house, it would be if one could imagine a full grown adult climbing on top of the back of a couch or recliner and leaping off, landing full force on the living room floor. Much like this scenario, the impact was sudden and short-lived.

The sound, however, was extremely similar to the firing of artillery, much as Powell described it in Michigan.

The above incident occurred, as mentioned earlier, on November 5. However, one week prior, a similar, albeit weaker, explosion was heard in the same locations. Reports were made to this writer from both Marion and Mullins in terms of the noticeable impacts and sounds of this separate explosion. Like the first, the sound was similar to artillery, the impact was also distinct but sudden and brief.

To my knowledge, there have been no mainstream local reports of the earlier “explosion.” Also as in the second incident, I can personally attest to the nature of the first.

Of course, the “explosions” themselves are mysterious and intriguing enough. However, when one takes into consideration some accompanying reports of other strange occurrences, the incident takes on a much more shadowy feature.

Just after the second incident, a reporter from the Weekly Observer in Hemingway stated that he saw several aircraft in the sky. He stated, “I saw six jet aircraft with more lightning behind them than normal. This would lead me to believe they were engaging their afterburners and thus the super-sonic speeds and sonic-boom that followed.”

At first, the reporters’ statement seems to corroborate the idea of the “explosions” being caused by sonic booms. However, as I stated earlier, if the jets that were making this sound were flying this close to the ground as to be counted and the action of their afterburners clearly seen, then many other individuals would have also heard the jets themselves. Furthermore, the accompanying noises themselves simply did not sound anything like a sonic boom. So, one must wonder exactly what the alleged aircraft were doing in the area.

In addition, there had been military exercises conveniently scheduled a few days before the second explosion and one day before the first. As reported by WBTW, “There was an Air Force training exercise scheduled for the Pee Dee region on Halloween morning, but nothing was announced for Monday.”

Others reported seeing what they believe to be helicopters. Joe Johnson of Bridge Neck stated, “ I saw the lights they looked like helicopters. Then there was a loud roar.”

Again, Johnson’s description of strange lights is also a common report coming from sources who felt the explosions as well as those who did not.

Many of those who felt the “explosions” reported seeing “bright lights” just beforehand. Others, were reporting “strange lightning” in the skies in the days leading up to the explosions.

With reports of this nature growing in scope from Michigan to South Carolina and, indeed, all over the country, there is clearly something happening. The question, of course, is what?

As Bob Powell stated in regards to Michigan’s mysterious incident, “If you’re looking for information in the local media, good luck. Because they’re not saying a word.”

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Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Released in the Millions with No Risk Assessment

In case you didn’t know, genetically modified mosquitoes have been unleashed numerous times on planet Earth. Thus far, millions mosquitoes were released in various locations; Cayman Islands, Malaysia, and Brazil. Now, the GM mosquito creator Oxitec may release millions of genetically modified mosquitoes in the fields of crops, including olives, citrus fruits, cabbage, tomatoes, and cotton.

A UK-based company, Oxitec is the maker of all genetically modified insects. The company’s goal is to create a global market, where GM insects will be released around the world in order to take over natural insect populations. With the replacement of natural insects, the company hopes to wipe out disease carried by insects as well as those insects feeding on farmers’ crops. As scary as it might sound, thousands of insect species could be genetically altered in the near future.

Interestingly, Oxitec is supported by and very close with multinational pesticide and seed company, Syngenta. Syngenta, in addition to providing the world with destructive pesticides, has also been charged with covering up the deaths of many animals consuming the company’s GM corn. Being mainly interested in the market for GM agricultural pests, Syngenta as well as Oxitec are planning to commercialize GM insects around the world.

What’s especially scary about the release and future modification of thousands of species is that all of this will be done with little risk assessment. Not to mention not knowing of the vast number of negative outcomes that could occur from genetically modifying parts the biosphere.

Dr Helen Wallace, Director of GeneWatch UK said “The public will be shocked to learn that GM insects can be released into the environment without any proper oversight. Conflicts-of-interest should be removed from all decision-making processes to ensure the public have a proper say about these plans.”

To help release the GM insects, Oxitec is influencing regulation around the world. One example of influence revolves around the European Food Safety Authority, established to help the risk assessment of GM insects. As reported by FarmWars, there seems to be numerous instances of conflict of interested, which includes experts with links to Oxitec. The connection of those in EFSA and Oxitec is very similar to that of the Monsanto-FDA connection, where several government officials have hard-links to biotech giant Monsanto.

The draft Guidance on risk assessment of GM insects shows some significant deficiencies: for example it does not consider the impacts of GM insects on the food chain. Oxitec’s GM insects are genetically engineered to die mostly at the larval stage so dead GM larvae will enter the food chain inside food crops such as olives, cabbages and tomatoes. Living GM insects could also be transported on crops to other farms or different countries. EFSA has excluded any consideration of these important issues from its draft guidance. Many other issues are not properly addressed.

A briefing shows how Oxitec is trying to influence regulatory processes for GM insects. Oxitec:

• Doesn’t want to be liable for any complications.
• Tries to avoid any regulation of GM agricultural pests on crops appearing in the food chain.
• Excludes important issues from risk assessments, such as the impact on human immunity and disease, and the possible outcomes arising from surviving GM mosquitoes.
• Releases large amount of GM mosquitoes prior to regulations.
• Attempts to define ‘biological containment’ of the insects (which are programmed to die at the larval stage) as contained use, by-passing requirements for risk assessments and consultation on decisions to release GM insects into the environment.
• Undermining the requirement to obtain informed consent for experiments involving insect species which transmit disease.
• Ignores any labeling using products produced from GM insects and how insects can be contained where released. 

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