Did Rapid Repairs cause house to blow up?

From Eyewitness News:

Word of the explosion and fire first came into Eyewitness News shortly before 2:00 p.m.

NewsCopter 7 showed heavy fire and smoke rising from the scene at 84th Street between 162nd and 163rd Avenue.

Authorities sounded a second alarm around 2:20. Firefighters were being kept back from the building to fight the intense flames in case of another explosion.

A woman was inside the home at the time of the explosion. Neighbors managed to help her get out. She suffered severe burns, authorities said. She was taken to Jamaica Hospital in critical condition. Neighbors tell Eyewitness News that her husband is devastated.

Eyewitness News has learned that Rapid Repair work was done at this house to fix damage from Hurricane Sandy. Work on the gas service was supposed to be conducted within the past week.

Beware of shoddy Rapid Repairs work

From Eyewitness News:

A licensed plumbing inspector says he was fired by Rapid Repairs after confronting his boss about unsafe installation of heating systems.

"I was fixing heating contractors mistakes left and right, things that would get people killed," the whistle blowing plumber said.

In talking to Eyewitness News, he requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.

While at Rapid Repairs he documented what he says is shoddy and potentially deadly work such as this faulty boiler flue.

Rapid Repairs did more harm than good

From NBC:

A Staten Island family was devastated after a contractor hired by the city to make repairs in their Sandy-damaged home left a giant hole on the side of their house.

The contractor was hired by the city's Rapid Repairs program to fix a bathroom pipe and the heat in the home where Kathy Barzal lived with her husband and son in South Beach before Sandy left the home uninhabitable. The family has been living in a small apartment for the last four months.

Barzal said initially she was thrilled when the contractor showed up at the home Wednesday.

But Barzal's excitement was short-lived. The contractor did make the necessary repairs to the pipe, but in the process created a massive hole, approximately 8 feet wide and 3 feet tall, leaving the home exposed to the elements.

So much for that

From the Daily News:

Two-thirds of the storm-ravaged buildings whose owners sought help from Mayor Bloomberg’s Rapid Repair program are still not fixed — two months after Hurricane Sandy hit, the Daily News has learned.

With registration set to end Monday, Rapid Repairs has completed work on only 4,216 of the 12,555 buildings enrolled in Rapid Repairs — just one in three.

“Work has begun on another 2,506, with another 5,833 remaining,” Peter Spencer, spokesman for the Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery, said Friday.

Eleven days after the storm, Mayor Bloomberg announced Rapid Repairs — a $500 million, first-of-a-kind effort to quickly restore power and heat to homes devastated by Sandy. “In the neighborhoods hardest hit by Sandy, homeowners need help fixing their homes — and they need it now,” the mayor declared.

The city agreed to pay contractors to assess the damage and get power, heat and hot water back up and running right away. Within 10 days, 6,000 homeowners had enrolled.
More than two months later, thousands of homeowners are still waiting. The city hired Tishman to assess damage, but many homeowners complained the firm wound up doing repeat assessments and losing paperwork while no actual work was done.

Rapid Repairs slow & excludes mold remediation

From the Daily News:

...mold has become one of the biggest health hazards after Sandy.

Volunteers working with the Met Council, a social service agency, found that only one in five families is hiring professional mold cleaning services, not surprising given that mold remediation can cost several thousands of dollars.

The rest are either painting over the mold or purchasing cheap and ineffective cleanup kits. Until local and federal relief agencies come up with a solution, people who, like the Gonzalos, can’t afford to have the mold removed are being left to live in toxic homes.

Religious leaders and elected officials are calling on Mayor Bloomberg to add mold remediation to the city’s Rapid Repairs program, which was established to help residential property owners affected by Sandy make emergency repairs including restoration of heat, power and hot water.

A report put out by QCUA says the administration’s relief response has been “slow and inadequate” in Queens: As of December 5 only 174 homes (out of 38,000 homes and businesses on the Rockaway Peninsula) had received help through Rapid Repairs. Over 8,000 more were still waiting to be inspected. Also, QCUA found that health conditions have deteriorated dangerously: “Contamination of homes and air caused by microbial growth due to flooding and a mold epidemic has led to pulmonary problems dubbed the ‘Rockaway Cough.’”

Even worse, the mold problem is not limited to the Rockaways, says Met Council CEO Willie Rapfogel.