Why Is Cuomo In Israel When Parts Of Long Island Are Under The Sea?

Newsday tonight:

Long Island commuters were struggling Wednesday evening with the aftermath of the historic weather event that earlier dumped double-digit amounts of rainfall across parts of Long Island, flooding roadways, rail lines and basements.

The epic rainfall -- the National Weather Service's Upton office said 13.27 inches poured down between 11 p.m. Tuesday and 10:30 a.m. Wednesday -- overwhelmed virtually every major roadway in Nassau and Suffolk counties at some point.

As of 6 p.m., all lanes on Sunrise Highway eastbound -- except the furthest left lane -- were closed, just west of Islip Avenue in Islip because of flooding, Suffolk Police said. The westbound lanes in that area remain closed.

The state Department of Transportation reported the following closures were still in effect as of 6: 30 p.m. due to flooding.

Wantagh State Parkway was closed both directions between Exit W5 (NY 27) to Exit W4 (Southern State Pkwy).

Ocean Parkway eastbound at Tobay Beach, the right and center lanes are closed.

Meadowbrook Parkway Northbound approximately ¾ of a mile north of Loop Parkway, the right lane closed at the False Channel Bridge.

Robert Moses Causeway has one right lane closed southbound at Sunrise Highway (NY 27) in Bay Shore.

Route 25A at Lawrence Hill Road in Cold Spring Harbor is closed.

Route 27A in Islip between Ocean Avenue and Saxon Avenue is closed.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who is in Israel, dispatched emergency equipment and personnel to Long Island, and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, who said the county received several reports of homes damaged by flooding, added that the rainfall was "historic."

On the roads during the day, drivers encountered flooding almost everywhere.

Speaking from a fire house in North Babylon, where 50 motorists had been stranded, Bellone said, "I've never seen this level of flooding in my entire time in government." He said that there had been a flash flood warning, but "no one predicted anything like this."
Nearly every major roadway in both counties reported full to partial closures because of flooding as early as 4:30 a.m. and until past noon, according to the state Department of Transportation.

The most seriously affected areas included the westbound Long Island Expressway from exits 49 through 50, where the fatal accident took place, and the Southern State Parkway eastbound, between exits 40 and 43N.

In many cases, all lanes were closed for several hours, with traffic backed up for miles. The Southern State had cars stranded in several feet of water.

Also heavily flooded were parts of Route 110 in Farmingdale and Route 111 in Smithtown.

According to Newsday, weather experts called this "historic" rainfall a "200-year old weather event."

Governor Cuomo was overseas in Israel today, so he couldn't coordinate the state's response to this "200-year old weather event."

A few weeks back when there was the threat of an MTA strike, members of the press were grousing on Twitter that Mayor de Blasio didn't cancel his family vacation to Italy to deal with the crisis (even though as mayor of New York City, he has no authority over the MTA, even though the "crisis" hadn't actually happened yet and turned out not to happen at all.)

Today we hear no grousing over Cuomo's overseas trip, even as parts of Long Island remain under water.

Here's a photo from this evening:

@MichaelMurphyNY @MercyMercyf Taken 2 hours ago, long after the storm ended. U see any emergency crews? #wherescuomo pic.twitter.com/37BWWyAvB6
— Christine (@quadgurl) August 13, 2014

My take was this:

@MercyMercyf @quadgurl @MichaelMurphyNY If this were de Blasio, they'd be screaming "Where is the mayor?"
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) August 13, 2014

@MercyMercyf @quadgurl @MichaelMurphyNY Cuomo gets pass thought. "Oh, he's in Israel" - along w/ most of press corps.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) August 13, 2014

Much of the state did not get the kind of rainfall parts of Long Island got.

NYC got less than an inch of rainfall.

But the parts of Long Island that got rainfall got Noah's Ark rainfall.

It would be nice if Cuomo said, "You know, being in Israel is great and I'm happy I've made my appearance and shown solidarity with Israel, blah blah blah, but now it's time to help Long Island get out from under the water."

Alas, not going to happen.

And it seems the press is not going to call him on it.

Again I ask you to imagine if this were de Blasio and parts of Brooklyn were under 13 inches of water from a historic rainfall while Blaz was overseas doing some politicking.

How do you think that would play in the media?