Flu season is upon us and the good people at the Bay Improvement Group will be sending out their Mobile Medical Unit into the local community to provide free flu shots and free tetanus shots with a doctor on sight. Here are the details:
The Bay Improvement Group, in association with Coney Island Hospital, will be providing a Mobile Medical Unit to the Sheepshead Bay / Plumb Beach community.
Location: 3075 Emmons Avenue, corner of Brown Street
Dates: Thursday, Jan. 17; Friday, Jan. 18; Saturday, Jan. 19
Times: 9am-5pm
The Mobile Medical Unit will supply FREE flu shots, FREE tetanus shots, and have a doctor available.
We’d like to thank Councilman Nelson’s office for providing support in bringing this needed resource to the community, and the Department of Transportation and the 61st Precinct for their cooperation.
Bay Improvement Group
NO NEIGHBOR LEFT BEHIND
www.bayimprovementgroup.org
718-646-9206
FEMA is on hand at the Miramar Yacht Club (3050 Emmons Avenue) right now until 3:00 p.m. today.
The one day FEMA Applicant Registration Site has FEMA employees that are able to assist those who need help applying, answer questions and determine next steps for those who have already applied.
The FEMA site is in response to the request made at the Rapid Repairs Town Hall Meeting organized by Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein, Councilman Fidler and Assemblyman Maisel.
Trucks move freshly pumped sand around Plumb Beach (Source: New York District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers/Flickr)
Almost immediately after it became clear that Hurricane Sandy, and its alter-ego the Frankenstorm, could come ashore in Long Island or New York City, we reached out to the Army Corps of Engineers to see how work is coming along at Plumb Beach, and if it will withstand the hit.
Army Corps contractors are in the middle of the first stage of sand replenishment at Plumb Beach, where they’re pumping 127,000 cubic yards of sand to restore the heavily eroded beach. With the hurricane slated to hit us before work is completed, we feared that loose sand could be washed away, taking the project a few steps back – and that the Belt Parkway is still at risk.
Not so, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. They say work is coming along nicely, and the most vulnerable areas have already been reshored, protecting the Belt Parkway.
“We’ve actually finished more than half of the sand placement, and are in the process of deploying the temporary geotube groin,” said project manager Dan Falt. “We’re done in the section of the beach that received the most erosion. We will be prepared for the storm, and the sand should do it’s job and protect the Belt Parkway.”
As we reported last week, the Army Corp of Engineers began the process of restoring Plumb Beach by pumping more than 127,000 cubic yards of sand into the eroded stretch.
The video above shows you exactly what you’d expect sand pumping to look like, with a motorized plume of sand exploding onto the coastline in a near continuous stream. The sand itself is coming from Ambrose Channel, one of the city’s navigational waterways that serves commercial vessels coming and going from New York Harbor.
The process of pumping sand onto the beach is part of effort’s first phase, which should be completed in November.
The first phase of the project will see sand pumped onto Plumb Beach, brought here from Ambrose Channel – a navigational waterway that serves many of the commercial vessels entering and exiting New York Harbor. The Staten Island-based Great Lakes Dredge and Dock won the $3.5 million contract, and they will also place temporary geotube groins to prevent against any further erosion during the construction.
“Plumb Beach is being saved. The Belt Parkway is being saved. It is a good day for our community,” said Councilman Fidler.
Andy Novick, founder of the Plumb Beach Surf Club, 30-year Plumb Beach advocate, and Sheepshead Bay’s first unofficial vlogger, submitted the video above.
He writes:
I have been screaming about Plumb Beach for over 30 years… Mother nature wants to connect the Bay to Gerritsen Creek, like it used to be over a 100 years ago. The only reason sand was put in at Plumb Beach was to build the Belt Parkway, the Robert Moses plan. Let the next hurricane connect Gerritsen Creek to Plumb Beach, flood the Belt and give back to Mother Nature what she wants anyway.
Novick may have been the first to sound the alarm about erosion and garbage at Plumb Beach, having sent this video around to all the local news broadcasters. He said the stations had never even heard of the beach at the time, but, in response to his video, sent news crews down to cover the issue, and, of course, wherever there are news cameras there are local pols.
Here’s one of the resulting news reports, featuring some very familiar faces:
I don’t know where to start, the hand-held rat? Markowitz as a young state senator? The awesomely 70′s hair? Kingsborough Community College giving academic credit for windsurfing?
Regardless, little has changed in more than 30 years. The pollution and dumping at the beach is better monitored, and there has been at least one major sand restoration in that time. But here we are today, facing similar challenges as the Army Corps continues to ponder long-term solutions against erosion – just as they were 30 years ago.
The NYC Audubon group has announced they will be hosting a clean-up Plumb Beach event on Saturday, September 15 at 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m.
They invite volunteers to join them as they clean Plumb Beach for International Coastal Cleanup Day. The plan is to remove and catalog garbage at the site.
Beach plums, which are native to the Atlantic coast of North America and have been endangered in places such as Maine due to commercial development of the beaches, have been spotted on Plumb Beach.
Late summer to autumn is the ripening season for the fruit, and for those interested in jams and preserves, the native species supports a cottage beach plum industry throughout the Northeast coast.
The sweet and tarty tinier version of the popular plum found in most groceries is edible straight from the shrub. Foragers, go forth and forage our native fruit and be one with the intentionally named Plumb Beach.
Looks like they’re having fun, but considering they’re fishing from what appears to be the DEP outflow pump near Brigham Street – which was still active at the time – we really hope this couple decided not to eat any of the catches!
