16. After Sandy, thousands left to freeze in public housing

http://www.salon.com/2012/11/09/after_sandy_thousands_left_to_freeze_in_public_housing/

On November 9th, Laura Gottesdiener wrote an article about some of the results after the Hurricane Sandy's disaster. The first paragraph of the article introduced the topic by describing a descriptive scene where thousands of Northeast residents are locked inside buildings with no way of getting out, while state authorities struggled to repair destroyed infrastuctures as well as other damage. In the next section, Gottesdiener gave a shocking statistic of trapped residents and further explained people's living conditions in the freezing weather as winter approaches, and how they were surviving without the basic and essential needs for living (electricity, heat, and even running water). By stating that despite doctors and volunteers are going around giving checkups and writing prescriptions and many said no one came to check on them, the author gives an idea of how many people are living in rough conditions.

The author's purpose for the article was to inform the general public about the effects and the intensity of destruction of Hurricane Sandy after it swept through the Northeast. She provided statistics and a quote from the Brooklyn City Councilman Stephen Levin to support her arguments with credible information. In addition, the author's tone could be best described as serious and informative because she does not add any humor to the article, but rather explains the conditions in different places like Rockaways, Queens, Lower East Side, Chinatown in Manhattan, and others. Her article was effective in the way that her descriptions of places made the reader both shocked and concerned.