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Community Corner

Editor's Notebook: The Adventures of Supermayor

On Sunday afternoon, despite the treacherous roads and emergency advisory, Mayor Carolyn Stevens took measures above and beyond the call of duty to make sure a local senior citizen, and grandma of a Patch employee, was safely relocated.

The Mayor might call it just a day's work, but for a beneficiary of Supermayor Carolyn Stevens' dedication and swift response during last weekend's storm, those caring actions were nothing short of a blessing.

"She was just totally above and beyond," said Lindsay Deak Friedman, a Scarsdale native and Patch recruiter based in our Manhattan headquarters.

Lindsay is a one-week veteran of Patch and though we haven't met, contacted me by e-mail on Sunday after reading, on Scarsdale Patch, about the previous evening's knock-down drag-out storm that left up to 75 percent of the village without electrical service.

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Her fear was that, among the casualties left without power or heat and possibly in distress, was her 83-year-old disabled grandmother in Heathcote, Renee Schwartz.

On Sunday at 1:35 p.m. she wrote:

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I hope that this email finds you well.  I am a fellow Patch employee (I work for the recruiting team now) and I am a native of Scarsdale.

My family still lives there, including my Grandmother who lives in Heathcote.
 My Mom and her husband (who live in Fox Meadow) are currently in Boulder, Colorado visiting my niece.  I received a panicked called from my Mother just now saying that she is freaking out that my Grandmother has no heat or electric in her house.

My grandmother is not well at all and has round-the clock-care, we are
trying to figure out what the best plan of action is in terms of making sure
she is kept warm and safe.

I sent my Mom to the Patch site but also wanted to see if there was any insight you could give me into what is going on up there. My Mom's house is out of power as well so we cannot move her there.... If there is any update on how things are looking that you could share with me directly, that may not be posting worthy, I would appreciate it greatly.

It should go without saying to you, readers, that I didn't have any information for her that wasn't posting worthy: In a crisis, I make it my business to make sure every little bit of information I get is going out there to you.

But it occurred to me that we didn't have any easy answers for her or other caregivers or relatives of those aging-at-home seniors who may not be able to take care of themselves in an emegency crisis such as the one last weekend.

So, I did the only thing I could think of: I called Mayor Stevens. 

While the mayor, who is readily available to the press at times like these (...and on breaking deadlines, and if you catch her between meetings, and, randomly, for tea in her office at 10 p.m. on a weekday night to explain how property assessment devaluation can hurt the local budget...), always seems to have a quick answer, she simply asked me for Schwartz's information and said she'd have "a police car or somebody stop by and check on her."

The next thing I heard about the situation was an e-mail from the mayor later on Sunday at 4:46 p.m.:

Would you do me a favor and post an article or note - asking folks to check on their older neighbors in areas that are without power.

Thanks,
Carolyn

In that three-hour time span, Mayor Stevens had gone to Morris Lane and personally checked on Ms. Schwartz herself, only to find the 25-year resident and grandmother shivering in her home, at the bottom of a recessed driveway off a street barricaded by fallen trees.

She was accompanied by her 26-year-old home health aide, Kat, but still recovering from a long, frightening, and chilly night surrounded by falling trees and lightening.

After making some calls, Mayor Stevens reached out to Lindsay personally, on her cell phone that day at 6:00 p.m.

"She called and she introduced herself, and she basically said she went over there to check on my grandmother," she said. "She'd been there herself, and she was basically telling the home healthcare aide that they wouldn't be with power until possibly Thursday or Friday," said Lindsay.

"She basically said 'She can't stay for the night, and I highly recommend that you move her out,' and she offered to do anything she could to help her get moved."

"She gave me the names of hotels to call, and we tried all the hotels, but they were all booked up," and Lindsay and her husband, who drove up from their Brooklyn Heights home, were able to find a spot at the Park Lane Hotel in midtown Manhattan instead.

"She basically said, 'Whatever you need, just let me know,' "she added.

Lindsay said that her grandmother's home health aide was on the brink of taking her client to her own Brooklyn apartment, which would have been difficult, since Schwartz is bound to a wheelchair.

"They actually spent the whole night of the storm going between rooms – a big tree just missed her living room by feet," she said, and another tree "missed her kitchen window by mere inches."

Mayor Stevens' efforts astounded her. "I was so surprised that she was actually calling me, and I was so surprised that she actually went herself," she said.

Having someone's take on the situation especially helped, since the health aide's cell phone battery was dying and Schwartz's family couldn't get an idea of the danger at hand.

"They were kind of terrified the whole night. She's in a wheelchair, and she has no idea what's going on. If we hadn't been able to get get up there, I don't know what we would've done," she said.

Schwartz is one of the many residents who values her ability to "age in place", as a popular term term describes independently situated older adults, but her home isn't well-suited to getting in and out, especially during inclimate weather.

"She lives down a long driveway that you would normally drive by it anyway, so it's especially hard to see without any electricity, and it was pretty difficult to get down [that day] because there were tons of branches in the driveway as well. I don't even know where [Mayor Stevens] was coming form, but she would've had to take six detours to get there," Lindsay noted. (A Hartsdale friend who had stopped by the home earlier in the day traveling by way of the Greenacres crossover said it took him 25 minutes to get to the home at Morris Lane and Heathcote Ave.)

On Monday morning, I received a grateful e-mail from Lindsay, who was happy to provide this message, and photos of her grandmother:

My husband and I ended up going up to Westchester to move her to a hotel in NYC (all the Westchester hotels were booked) as a result of your efforts and the kindness of the Mayor.   You now have new rabid fan base in my family : ) My Mother feels better knowing that there is a site that she can go to that will give her up-to-date information on what is going on in Scarsdale while she is out of town, and that there is a very connected and effective editor that she can email should an emergency arise : )   Thank you a million times over. 

 





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