New York Marathon - where is the love?? Cancel... go on?

As I just posted in the response above, the resources needed for the marathon would have been provided almost entirely BY the marathon, by the NYRR, volunteers who signed up way in advance to help at the marathon, and by private individuals or sponsors who were there to SPONSOR the marathon. Those people would not have been there otherwise, some of them not even IN NEW YORK if it were not for the marathon. It was kind of poor taste to wait up until the last minute, claiming the marathon was still going to happen and then suddenly saying it wasn't. They either should have cancelled it immediately after the storm hit OR they should have gone ahead and held it anyway since they waited till late FRIDAY to change their minds about it. Actually, it looks like a lot of good is coming from the runners in retrospect, and there are lots of people who are coming together in the communities to help. Controversy is never good....

The course hasn't been affected too severely by the storm, except for Central Park being closed. The electricity issue is not even related to the marathon, as I am sure they will use generators for whatever power they need. Electric can only be restored so fast, and they have to make sure the pathways are safe so they don't spark another fire and cause damage or injury to more people or property I have been reading up on this and it appears that most of the people who are angry are angry because they have received no official help from police, emergency personnel, insurance, etc. The thing is - even if the marathon were NOT happening on Sunday, the same situation would exist. These are people who did not receive help when the storm occurred, they flooded, they were stranded, or their house caught on fire. They are hungry, cold, have lost possessions or family members, and the agencies and emergency people have NOT come to help. I just want to point out that those agencies and emergency people are NOT diverted or doing anything for the marathon, they simply are not THERE where they are needed, so this has nothing to do with whether the marathon is held or not. People believe that having the race anyway will divert help needed elsewhere - it's not going to last all day long, I think there's a 6 hour cut off. Some of the people involved are only involved BECAUSE of the marathon, and if it were not being held, they would not be involved otherwise, so claiming it is taking away people who would be elsewhere is not exactly true.

See, many people are highly upset about the fact there has been NO HELP. I think this attitude is spilling into all the nasty comments I've seen posted and stated by people who have a problem with the NY Marathon. This is not the fault of the NY Marathon and I wish people didn't use it as their scapegoat for why they aren't getting the help they need. The help issue is different entirely - do I have a problem with the fact that many residents have received no help and are still flooded with no home, no gas, no electricity and no food? YES I have a problem with it! The agencies and forces who should be responsible to remedy this need to get their act together NOW and show up. FEMA, the police and emergency personnel should BE there right now and should have been there a few days ago! I wanted to let you know that we have a lot of people from here who have been shifted out there for emergency work, friends whose husbands work for electric and gas and for phone companies, police and fire and emergency - they have all been called into work to travel to the east coast to try and help fix this mess. Some of them have no idea when their husbands and daddies are coming home, and they may be out there for a month or several months, or longer.

I don't think we are using the marathon as a scapegoat for not getting the help we need. I personally love and support the marathon every year. Last year I was out there helping to give out water by one if the check points by my home. My personal opinion as a person in the middle of all of this storm drama, I think it's a bad time to continue the marathon this Sunday. I'm not saying to not have it at all, but this Sunday is not the right time. I have 16 people in my 3 bedroom apartment because they don't have power. Just because our opinions on this subject are not the same doesn't mean one is right or wrong. They are just different. As of now the have postponed the marathon. And I can't wait until things settle down so I can be out there handing out waters like I did last year. We appricate all the help we can get. So for all of those who are leaving their homes to come to NYC, NJ, and Long Island we are forever grateful.

I don't think you have done that, but I clearly see there are people who have. People who claim the marathon would have taken AWAY support that needed to go to victims, etc. It wouldn't have, because the majority of the marathon support was going to be people who were just there FOR the marathon. While it's true that many volunteers and people who are there now who went for the marathon are helping now, if the marathon had been held, it would have mostly been people who signed up to help specifically for the marathon and they wouldn't have been helping otherwise. I still don't know why people aren't seeing that. Are they planning on holding the marathon later this year or just doing it next year? I feel for the overseas people who make all those arrangements to fly out there, some of them had to take multiple flights and drive from wherever they were able to get there and then forfeit everything, the time, the money for flights, hotels, cars, taxis and the registration fee. While I could see a lot of states travelers staying to help with disaster relief, I just don't see that as much with the international runners. BTW, what is going on with the power? There are people there waiting to try and help get the power back on but something is causing a bottleneck... the union? Do you know anything about that? My friend's husband is there and has been told he can't do anything yet, and there's nowhere for these men to stay, he is sleeping in his work truck I guess I also differ in that when things are really terrible, I would rather have something GREAT to focus on that is going on that can take everyone's mind off the crap. I realize not everybody appreciates races and marathons and sporting events but many people do, and if I had a disaster here, I would cling like a drowning person to any event that was going on that could take us all away from the disaster. I was hit by someone when I turned onto a street back when I was only 19 - in my first car. I had plans to go to the movies later with the friend who was with me, and after we took care of the accident report and spoke to the police and exchanged ins info, I told him I still wanted to go to the movies. So we went to the movies. I was able to turn something awful into something at least a bit better after all.

Well it looks like the marathon has been cancelled anyway but I doubt there would have been insufficient resources to deal with both the clean up operation and the event. I'm sure that a place like New York could appeal to, and mobilize, sufficient additional personnel/volunteers/marshals to oversee the event. I think the event could have reflected positively on the city but, then again, I don't live there and do not know the full extent of the damage. The fact that the authorities were thinking of putting the event on suggests that resources would have been sufficient. I'm sure they had contingencies in place.Of course,the residents should be the ones who are listened to,and it seems that they have been.However, I think that the dithering and inefficiency shown by the powers-that-be there is disappointing and not very New York-like.

Yes....except doing so takes police and other officials away from more important things that are going on in the area right now.

Um... Kemak - people keep SAYING that. That is NOT true. The marathon would NOT have 'taken away police and other officials' who should have been doing 'more important things'. The police and other officials who would have been present for the marathon are people who were hired and there specifically FOR THE MARATHON. Those people would NOT have been there for any other reason, so they were in no danger of being taken away from where they should be. For instance, if I sub at one certain school (and only that certain school), that would be like someone at another school griping that if I go work at the one place, they can't believe I'm doing that because I'm needed at THEIR school. Well, I'm not available to work at any of them except the ONE, and if I wasn't working at that ONE that day, it's not like I would be available to work at the other one. Get where I'm going with this? I think it's important to make every effort to show solidarity and proof to others, other people, other countries, etc that we do not fold, that things do not break us. This attitude extends into other things - you know.... like - the show must go on! One thing I am very disappointed in is that they don't appear to be refunding or donating the lost registration fees to the storm victims, and I honestly think they need to do one or the other, or allow runners to be paid up for next year's marathon. It's frustrating to me as a runner that most events NEVER give refunds or allow you to transfer your paid fee if you have to defer your entry. This is kind of rotten PR all the way around, the money was spent and collected, do something honorable with it! Benefit SOMEBODY, don't just pocket it and tell your runners and the storm victims that you're 'sorry'.