Credit: UnsplashHardest-hit NYC communities left in the dark longer after severe weatherThe aftermath of Hurricane Ida in 2021 shed light on the disproportionate impact of natural disasters on marginalized communities in New York City, especially in Queens, where 11 out of the city's 13 flooding-related deaths occurred. The resulting flooding not only damaged homes but also exposed residents to significant health risks, including high levels of sewage waste, mold and prolonged power outages. Epicenter-NYC references a Con Edison report and a new study that support the claim that longer power outages often occur in neighborhoods with predominantly Black and Latino residents, compared to communities that live in wealthier areas like Midtown Manhattan.
“We’ve seen, after severe storms in the city like Ida, that Manhattan had its power back within hours, while there were low-income and largely non-white parts of Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn, where it took days,” said Nina M. Flores, a doctoral student at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, who is the principal author of the study.
So, the question emerges: Why are certain communities more vulnerable to frequent power outages, and why do certain communities’ power lines get prioritized over others?
First, it's important to note that the city prioritizes neighborhoods with "critical" infrastructure for repairs. These areas are typically less densely populated and have more resources, including nearby hospitals, police and fire stations, access to mass transit, and sewage and water-pumping facilities. On the contrary, neighborhoods like those in the Bronx, which are more densely populated and have older buildings, are not given priority for power line repairs. And this has a direct impact on the health of many marginalized communities, especially individuals who live with critical health conditions such as cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, and mental health diseases and have limited access to nearby healthcare facilities, placing them at a significant disadvantage during prolonged power outages.
Credit: Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight LocalAfter a months-long coma in 2020, this Latino immigrant worker is still fighting mysterious symptoms of long COVIDOsbaldo Varilla-Aguilar, a 46-year-old Latinx man living in San Francisco, faced a health crisis in December 2020 due to the coronavirus. As a construction worker, his journey through COVID's impacts has been challenging and continues to affect his health today. "I don’t have the strength that I used to, and I run out of breath when I try," he tells El Tecolote.
Varilla-Aguilar's battle began when he fell into a coma for three months, with his only connection to the outside world being weekly Zoom calls with his sister. Despite doctors recommending that his family disconnect him from the ventilator after two months, they refused.
“It was such a difficult time,” said his sister Araceli Aguilar-Perez. “To see him like that, it affected me a lot.”
Varilla-Aguilar miraculously survived and now lives in a shared home with other Latinx workers in San Francisco, a community hit hard by COVID. But Varilla-Aguilar's ongoing struggle sheds light on the challenges and mysteries surrounding the lingering effects of long COVID, a condition much less understood by doctors and researchers.
Within weeks of being discharged from the hospital in 2021, Varilla-Aguilar permanently lost his vision in his left eye within hours. He says he also experiences physical symptoms that have made it more difficult to work, including fatigue, brain fog and numbness in his feet.
“[COVID] can cause many things, one of them being [blood clots],” said Dr. Hector Bonilla, a clinical infectious disease expert and associate professor at Stanford University. “It can happen any place [in the body],” said Bonilla. “Maybe this can explain what happened in the eye.”
Plus: “A Pandemic Ignored” is a print and audio series uncovering the life-altering impacts of the coronavirus and the untold stories of Latinos living with long COVID (palabra., in partnership with Northwest Public Broadcasting)
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