Compost A Shark? Who Knew?

Three sightings makes a trend:

Sunbathers found a shark on Staten Island’s South Beach yesterday — a dead, blue-eyed beastie no more than 2 feet long.

The silver-skinned, dorsal-finned sand shark was no man-eater, but it fascinated beach-goers who found it floating near the northernmost end of the beach.

Victoria Torello of Prince’s Bay and Maria Sciabica of Grasmere called the city Parks Department in order to save the shark from becoming poked at and picked apart by seagulls and curious beachfolk. Parks scooped the animal into a black plastic bag and took it away, most likely to be trashed or composted.

“We just felt bad for it,” said Ms. Sciabica. “It’s God’s creature.”

Sand sharks are fairly prevalent in the New York Bay, according to marine environmentalist Jim Scarcella of the Natural Resources Protective Association, who occasionally sees them pulled up on fishing lines off the Ocean Breeze pier.

“They’re becoming more and more common because of changes in the ecosystem,” he said, noting that the scavengers will slither into shallow waters when food becomes scarce further in.

“The good news,” he added, “is that they pose absolutely no risk to bathers or swimmers.”

Another 2-foot sand shark, a live one, washed up at Coney Island over Labor Day weekend, prompting a lifeguard there to rescue it from the blows of frightened swimmers and coax it back to sea.

A 5-foot thresher shark also scared beachgoers at Rockaway Beach in Queens that weekend: A greater threat, because the thresher is known to be more aggressive, Scarcella said.

But Don’t Worry — The Office of Emergency Management Has Spent Literally Hours Working On A Disaster Plan

Jeez, Doctor Downer:

The widespread havoc wreaked by two major hurricanes in Central America and Mexico in the past two weeks may be making headlines worldwide, but the idea of a similar catastrophe befalling the five boroughs seems as remote as ever for millions of New Yorkers.

But not for Queens College Professor Nicholas Coch.

. . .

So, what is in the cards for Queens and the city, if and when a hurricane strikes?

The city’s Office of Emergency Management has spent hours trying to answer that question in hopes of formulating an evacuation plan.

Under their doomsday scenario, a Category 3 storm would likely begin brewing in late August off the west coast of Africa. There, a cluster of high-pressure weather systems converge and arrange into a dark swirling mass that starts to make its way across the Atlantic along a current of warm tropical water. Perhaps the hurricane roars across the Caribbean, much the way one did late last month. Eventually, it begins churning north.

But it is unclear whether the storm will end up hitting New York on its northbound route. The hurricane has already charted a predictable course along the so-called “Atlantic conveyor belt,” but once it goes farther north than Florida and the Carolinas, it begins moving erratically and picks up speed — making it increasingly difficult to predict exactly where it will land.

“When you’re viewing it from Cape Hatteras (in North Carolina),” Coch says, “you can sit back, sip a gin and tonic and watch the storm move slowly over the ocean.” But by the time it appears to be on a path toward New York, “you’ve got about six hours to get out . . . Otherwise, forget it: You’re gone.”

As the Category 3 hurricane churns its way up the coast, the mayor and OEM officials are meeting to discuss how they will handle a mammoth evacuation. City officials estimate that anywhere from 2.5 million to 3.4 million people will need to leave their homes in a short amount of time, if the storm starts barreling toward the city.

. . .

But OEM’s evacuation plan, deemed inadequate in a report conducted by the New York State Assembly last year, will be put to the test. City officials must figure out how to stretch their resources — 881 public shelters for an estimated 1.4 million evacuees who say they would need public shelter during a major hurricane, according to an Army Corps of Engineers study.

That is, of course, if New Yorkers actually decide to leave. The cumbersome two-tier system of evacuation will deter many residents from evacuating, the state report found. Some 40 percent of people will decide not to leave when they learn they must first report to a reception center before they are brought to a shelter.

Others will stay at their homes, because they don’t fully appreciate the threat, Coch worries. “In this situation, one of the most dangerous things in New York are the New Yorkers and their New Yorker mentality,” he said. “They don’t want to be told to evacuate, because so many people think a hurricane could never hit here. Just couldn’t happen.

“Of course, by the time it does hit, it’ll be too late for them.”

For residents seeking a reception center, the mere task of arriving at the designated centers will be a challenge, since many locations are not accessible by public transportation. And as severe thunderstorms buffet the city, the transit system seems closer than ever to failing amid the inclement weather and sudden influx of fleeing riders.

Residents who do make it to the centers will be faced with yet another obstacle: transportation from the center to a shelter.

The city has dedicated roughly 6,000 school buses to the evacuation effort, though it’s unclear who will drive them, and the simple logistics of appointing drivers to evacuation vehicles hasn’t been worked out. Under the city’s evacuation plan, regular school bus drivers have been designated for the task, although no one has notified them of their responsibilities, and no one knows which city employees could fill their drivers’ seats if and when they don’t show up.

And then there’s this: “Potential Tropical Storm Could Strike NYC”. Yeesh!

Even Homer Nods (Off To Sleep)

It’s kind of like the Simpsons . . . if Homer really had the lives of 40 million people throughout the region in his hands:

The guard was discovered about 2 p.m. on Aug. 26 during a routine check by an inspector for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an N.R.C. spokesman said.

. . .

The guard was stationed at a checkpoint outside a secured entrance to the plant’s operating area. To get through, a person must swipe a badge that matches their palm print, according to Jim Steets, a spokesman for the plant’s owner, Entergy Nuclear Northeast.

Neil Sheehan, the N.R.C. spokesman, said the inspector stood 8 to 10 feet from the guard and, for about 10 minutes, tried to rouse him. Finally, as the inspector raised his voice, the guard stood up.

The guard has been suspended, with pay, while an investigation is conducted. Tests for drug and alcohol were negative, Mr. Sheehan said.

Mr. Steets said the guard had worked at the plant for about five years. “This is a person’s life and career we’re looking at,” he said. “Clearly it’s unacceptable if he’s inattentive to duty at his post, but before making a final decision, we want to look at all the circumstances.”

Helicopter . . . Nice Touch

Maybe you were wondering whether there are ever sharks at city beaches. The answer is of course there are sharks at city beaches:

Rockaway Beach looked like Amity Island yesterday as hundreds of screaming swimmers scrambled out of the surf after a 6-foot shark — and its ominous dorsal fin — was spotted close to the shore.

“It was scary,” said Julio Lento, 15, of Brooklyn.

“I didn’t want to get eaten.”

Experts believe it was a relatively harmless thresher shark — but during the mad dash for land, the killer great white “Jaws” was on everyone’s mind.

Sunbathers shouted, “Shark!” and “Get out of the water!” while lifeguards frantically blew their whistles to warn people.

Those who dared look behind could see a fin circling about 20 feet from the shoreline.

The beach was shut down immediately from Beach 107th Street to Beach 121st Street, said a Parks Department spokesman.

It reopened some five hours later.

Emergency responders from the FDNY and NYPD rushed to the scene, and a helicopter hovered over the water searching for the menacing-looking creature.

The shark was first spotted around 10:30 a.m. near Beach 109th Street by a couple of eagle-eyed beachgoers about 15 feet off the shore.

“They were saying, ‘What’s that?’ And I looked up and I said, ‘What is that?'” said the lifeguard on duty, who only gave his first name, Justin.

At the time, few people were in the water.

They watched incredulously as the tail flapped in and out of the ocean.

Moments later, the big fish — alive but clearly suffering — washed up on shore near Beach 109th Street.

“This thing was sick or lost its mother,” said Justin.

“It was flipping around. He had a big, floppy tail like an eel.”

Three do-gooders took matters into their own hands and dragged it by its tail into the water, he said.

Once back in the surf, the shark seemed to swim away. He was spotted going out about 50 feet.

But an hour later, when the water was full of swimmers, the shark returned — scaring the daylights out of people and prompting officials to keep swimmers out of the water until about 3:30 p.m.

The fright put a serious damper on the holiday weekend.

. . .

Keith DiLorenzo was so thrilled to see the rare sea dweller that he didn’t want to leave the water when the frenzied mob came rushing out.

While his relatives yelled to him — “Get out! Get out!” — the 12-year-old marine buff tried to get closer to the action.

“I wanted the shark to get close to the shore, so I found a sharp clam and I cut my finger and put drops of blood in the water,” said DiLorenzo, of Floral Park, L.I.

His grandmother, Pat DiLorenzo, said afterward, “When he got on the shore, all I thought was, ‘Thank God summer’s over.'”

And not to let a great story get in the way of the truth, but this was a downer, thanks a lot:

After looking at a photo of the shark that was beached, [Hans Walters, the New York Aquarium’s animal department supervisor and resident shark expert] said it was a thresher shark.

“These are deep-water fish,” he said. “It makes me believe someone caught him and released him.”

“I’m just surprised he’s this close.”

Telltale signs of thresher sharks include a tail that’s about half as long as their body, as well as weak teeth and jaws.

“These shark are not dangerous,” said Walters.

“The fact that he kept swimming toward shore leads me to believe that he’s dying.”

The shark later died.

Location Scout: Rockaway Beach.

When You Put It That Way . . .

The Daily News wants you to know that we are all going to die:

The Brooklyn Bridge is one of 166 city bridges labeled “structurally deficient,” putting it in the same category as the one that collapsed into the Mississippi River.

In fact, under the the feds’ rating system, the Brooklyn Bridge scored dramatically lower than the doomed Minneapolis bridge — and the Willis Ave. Bridge, which connects East Harlem to the Bronx, was not much better.

The Brooklyn Bridge also got lousy marks from the state, which called it one of three city bridges in “poor” condition with rusting steel joints and deteriorating brick and mortar on its ramps.

The biggest problem was the roadway deck on the Manhattan and Brooklyn approaches.

The state felt the “poor” rating was enough to raise concerns but not enough to shut down traffic like it did with the nearby Williamsburg Bridge in 1988.

At the city’s iconic landmark, a reporter observed considerable rust on metal structures and areas of missing brick work on the Manhattan anchorage.

Responding to the Daily News’ findings, Charles Carrier, a spokesman for the city Department of Transportation, said, “The bottom line is, if a bridge is unsafe, we close it. Obviously the Brooklyn Bridge was not deemed to be unsafe, but there are issues we’re going to be addressing.”

. . .

City officials stood by what they termed a “state of the art” inspection system and declined to perform additional checks on any of its bridges.

In New York, the federal government has labeled 2,110 bridges “structurally deficient,” of which 166 are in New York City, records show. The feds define this as structures with “deteriorated conditions of significant bridge elements.”

All of these bridges are rated by the U.S. Department of Transportation on the same 1-to-100 scale that gave the Minneapolis bridge a “sufficiency rating” of 50.

Considering factors such as structural adequacy and safety, serviceability and functional obsolescence, the Brooklyn Bridge was given the lowest possible “sufficiency rating,” a zero.

On the other hand, Sewell Chan is not into fear mongering*:

More than 2,000 bridges in New York State meet the federal government’s definition of “structurally deficient,” from the heavily traveled on-ramps of the Brooklyn Bridge to a 28-foot span across Trout Brook near the Canadian border.

The bridge that collapsed Wednesday in Minneapolis had also been labeled structurally deficient. But the term can have a variety of implications, and does not necessarily mean that any of the bridges are in real danger of significant failure. Typically the finding means inspectors have identified some kind of deterioration, cracks or movement.

The ramps to the Brooklyn Bridge, which carries about 132,000 vehicles a day, were downgraded last year from fair to poor condition. Yesterday, city officials said $149 million in repairs to the span were under way and that the bridge was safe. Still, city inspectors were at the bridge yesterday afternoon to check on its condition.

. . .

In the last eight years, the city has spent $3 billion improving some of the 787 bridges it controls, said Lori A. Ardito, the first deputy transportation commissioner. As a result, Ms. Ardito said, the number of bridges that the city deems to be in poor condition dropped to 3 last year from 40 in 1997.

In addition to the Brooklyn Bridge, the two others were a pedestrian bridge at East 78th Street over the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive in Manhattan and a bridge at Willow Lake at 76th Road in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens.

Ms. Ardito said “poor” did not mean a structure was at risk of collapse. At the Brooklyn Bridge, the major problem is the roadway deck on the ramps, and not structures that support the roadway. She said a more complete rehabilitation was expected to start in 2010.

“The poor rating for the Brooklyn Bridge means that there’s only components of the bridge that are in poor condition,” she said. “They’re actually the ramps leading to the bridge, not the span of the bridge.”

*Not that he didn’t try . . .

Earlier: Nothing A Little Paint Won’t Fix.

Location Scout: Brooklyn Bridge.