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Long lines, rising tempers seen at gas stations

Eileen Miley takes a break from cleaning her home that was destroyed by flooding during Storm Sandy in Staten Island, New York, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012. Three days after Sandy slammed the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, New York and New Jersey struggled to get back on their feet, the U.S. death toll climbed to more than 80, and more than 4.6 million homes and businesses were still without power. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Eileen Miley takes a break from cleaning her home that was destroyed by flooding during Storm Sandy in Staten Island, New York, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012. Three days after Sandy slammed the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, New York and New Jersey struggled to get back on their feet, the U.S. death toll climbed to more than 80, and more than 4.6 million homes and businesses were still without power. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Glenda Moore, and her husband, Damian Moore, react as they approach the scene where at least one of their childrens' bodies were discovered in Staten Island, New York, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012. Brandon Moore, 2, and Connor Moore, 4, were swiped into swirling waters as their mother tried to escape her SUV on Monday amid rushing waters that caused the vehicle to stall during Superstorm Sandy. Police said the mother, Glenda Moore, was going to her sister's home in Brooklyn when she tried to flee the vehicle with the boys, only to have the force of the rising water and the relentless cadence of pounding waves rip the boy's small arms from her. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Police officers wearing wet suits leave a site where the body of a 2-year-old child killed during Superstorm Sandy was discovered in Staten Island, New York, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012. Brandon Moore, 2, and Connor Moore, 4, were swiped into swirling waters as their mother tried to escape her SUV on Monday amid rushing waters that caused the vehicle to stall during Superstorm Sandy. Police said the mother, Glenda Moore, was going to her sister's home in Brooklyn when she tried to flee the vehicle with the boys, only to have the force of the rising water and the relentless cadence of pounding waves rip the boy's small arms from her. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Brooke Clarkin tries to salvage some personal items from her mother's home in Staten Island, New York, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012. Her mother's home was not only flooded to the ceiling, but was swept off its foundation and was carried to the other side of the street. The National Guard and federal emergency management officials will deliver 1 million meals and bottled water to New York areas hardest hit by Superstorm Sandy. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

As temperatures begin to drop, people wait in line to fill containers with gas at a Shell gasoline filling station Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012, in Keyport, N.J. In parts of New York and New Jersey, drivers lined up Thursday for hours at gas stations that were struggling to stay supplied. The power outages and flooding caused by Superstorm Sandy have forced many gas stations to close and disrupted the flow of fuel from refineries to those stations that are open. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

(AP) ? Motorists fumed in long lines at gas stations around the metropolitan area and screamed at each other Friday morning as fuel shortages hindered the region's efforts to recover from Superstorm Sandy.

Meanwhile, a backlash built against Mayor Michael Bloomberg's decision to hold the New York City Marathon on Sunday as scheduled, with some New Yorkers complaining that going ahead with the 26.2-mile race would be insensitive and a drain on the city's resources at a time when many are suffering.

Four days after Sandy slammed the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, the U.S. death toll climbed past 90 in 10 states, and included two boys who were torn from their mother's grasp by rushing floodwaters in Staten Island during the storm. Their bodies were found in a marshy area on Thursday.

With fuel deliveries in the East disrupted by storm damage and many gas stations lacking electricity to run their pumps, gasoline became a precious commodity, especially for those who depend on their cars for their livelihoods.

Some drivers complained of waiting three and four hours in line, only to see the pumps run out when it was almost their turn. Cars ran out of gas before they reached the front of the line. Police officers were assigned to gas stations to maintain order. In Queens, a man was charged Thursday with flashing a gun at another motorist who complained he was cutting in line.

At a Hess gas station Friday morning in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, the line snaked at least 10 blocks through narrow and busy streets. That caused confusion among other drivers, some of whom accidentally found themselves in the gas line. People got out of their cars to yell at them.

In addition, at least 60 people were lined up to fill red gas cans for their generators.

Vince Levine got in line in his van at 5 a.m. By 8 a.m., he was still two dozen cars from the front. "I had a half-tank when I started. I've got a quarter-tank now," he said.

"There's been a little screaming, a little yelling. And I saw one guy banging on the hood of a car. But mostly it's been OK," he said.

Cabdriver Harum Prince joined a line for gasoline in Manhattan that stretched 17 blocks down 10th Avenue, with about half the cars yellow cabs, a crucial means of getting around in a city with a still-crippled mass transit system.

"I don't blame anybody," he said. "God, he knows why he brought this storm."

More 3.8 million homes and business in the East were still without power, down from a peak of 8.5 million.

Bloomberg on Thursday defended the decision to hold the marathon, saying electricity is expected to be restored to all of Manhattan by race day, freeing up "an enormous number of police."

"This city is a city where we have to go on," he said.

But Staten Island resident George Rosado blasted the city for the decision.

"It's repulsive," said Rosado, who spent two days scrubbing sludge from his tiled floors and was preparing to demolish the water-logged walls of his home a block from the water. He added: "They should be getting resources to the elderly people who can't fend for themselves. That's more important than a marathon right now."

On Thursday, police recovered the bodies of two brothers, ages 2 and 4, who were swept away after the SUV driven by their mother, Glenda Moore, stalled in Sandy's floodwaters Monday evening.

"Terrible, absolutely terrible," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said as he announced that Brandon and Connor had been found been found dead. "It just compounds all the tragic aspects of this horrific event."

The discovery was another heartbreaking blow to Staten Island, a hard-hit borough that residents say has been largely forgotten. At least 19 people have been killed in Staten Island, about half the death toll for all of New York City.

Garbage is piling up, a stench hangs in the air and mud-caked mattresses and couches line the streets. Residents picked through their belongings, searching for anything that could be salvaged.

"We have hundreds of people in shelters," said James Molinaro, the borough's president. "Many of them, when the shelters close, have nowhere to go because their homes are destroyed. These are not homeless people. They're homeless now."

Molinaro complained the American Red Cross "is nowhere to be found" ? and some residents questioned what they called the lack of a response by government disaster relief agencies.

A relief fund is being created just for storm survivors on Staten Island, Molinaro and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Friday. And Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and a top Federal Emergency Management Agency official planned to tour the island.

There were hopeful signs, though, that life would soon begin to return to something approaching normal.

Consolidated Edison, the power company serving New York, said electricity should be restored by Saturday to customers in Manhattan and to homes and offices served by underground power lines in Brooklyn.

More subway and rail lines opened Friday, and the Holland Tunnel into New York was open to buses.

But the prospect of better times ahead did little to mollify residents who spent another day and night in the dark.

"It's too much. You're in your house. You're freezing," said Geraldine Giordano, 82, a lifelong resident of the West Village. Near her home, city employees had set up a sink where residents could get fresh water, if they needed it. There were few takers. "Nobody wants to drink that water," Giordano said.

"Everybody's tired of it already," added Rosemarie Zurlo, a movie makeup artist. She said she planned to temporarily abandon her powerless apartment in the West Village to stay with her sister in Brooklyn. "I'm leaving because I'm freezing. My apartment is ice cold."

There was increasing worry about the outage's effect on elderly residents.

Community groups have been going door-to-door on the upper floors of darkened Manhattan apartment buildings, and city workers and volunteer in hard-hit Newark, N.J., delivered meals to senior citizens and others stuck in their buildings.

"It's been mostly older folks who aren't able to get out," said Monique George of Manhattan-based Community Voices Heard. "In some cases, they hadn't talked to folks in a few days. They haven't even seen anybody because the neighbors evacuated. They're actually happy that folks are checking, happy to see another person. To not see someone for a few days, in this city, it's kind of weird."

Along the devastated Jersey Shore and New York's beachfront communities, a lack of electricity was the least of anyone's worries.

Residents were allowed back in their neighborhoods Thursday for the first time since Sandy slammed the coastline Monday night. Some were relieved to find only minor damage, but many others were wiped out.

"A lot of tears are being shed today," said Dennis Cucci, whose home near the ocean in Point Pleasant Beach was heavily damaged. "It's absolutely mind-boggling."

After touring a flood-ravaged area of northeastern New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie said it was time to act, not mourn.

"We're in the 'triage and attack phase' of the storm, so we can restore power, reopen schools, get public transportation back online and allow people to return to their homes if they've been displaced," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Cara Anna and Karen Matthews in New York, David Porter in Moonachie, N.J., and Wayne Parry in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-11-02-Superstorm%20Sandy/id-16b5a79bb3de4b2c959e6ed0709d9a16

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Best Practice Bootcamp, Session 1: | VFM Leonardo - Better ...

Posted on November 1, 2012, 1:28 pm, by Darlene Rondeau.

Let?s start with a warm up! In this session, I will cover the basics of what?s going on in the industry in terms of hotel shopper behavior, specifically where and how they?re researching hotels today.

Like all online shoppers, those shopping for travel are looking for rich visual experiences that help them better understand and feel comfortable about the purchase they are considering.?They also want to do it on many different web sites throughout what is a non-linear and very complex shopping journey from research, to comparison, purchase, post purchase and sharing.

A typical guest will use more than two dozen touch points to research a trip.? This means that there are a lot of opportunities to grab their attention and make a great impression.

Figure 1 is a chart that shows some of the key sites consumers find helpful during their planning process, which is when choices are being made.? The actual booking process follows.? Paul Brown, head of Global Brands at Hilton refers to the planning process as reaching consumers during their ?point of decision? vs. point of booking.

Consumers are going to different sites for different reasons and at different stages of the travel shopping journey.? Here are the results from a 2011 benchmark study by Atmosphere Research Group.

84% of travelers will visit brand.com or several different brand.coms to get the hotels direct perspective.? Also note that 83% will also visit an OTA (online travel agency), like Travelocity, to see what hotels are available in market.? Similarly, 83% will go to a traveler review site like TripAdvisor to read what others are saying, and 81% will check out a metasearch engine like Kayak to compare the prices.

The point is that hotel shoppers go to many sites in unpredictable ways looking for different things based on how they view the experience of that site.

What consumers see about an individual hotel must be consistent, relevant and interesting across all the sites they are using otherwise the hotelier risks not even making the shopping list of possible hotels to consider in their decision.? Compare figures 2 and 3 to see the difference in the consumer?s visual experience.

Another trend we can?t ignore is the fact that the lines between corporate and leisure travel are blurring.? Both travel shopping segments (business and leisure) want immerse, visually-rich presentations.? In fact, 93% of business travelers watched travel related video online last year (89% of leisure travelers).

There is also a misconception that business travelers aren?t interested in researching their stay.? The evidence suggests otherwise.? 56% say that they plan to spend more time shopping around and researching before booking business travel in order to find good value for their money.? 69% also say that they would like to stay at an upscale or luxury hotel if the price is right which demonstrates that business travelers are also looking for value.[1]

Challenge:?Check out the experience you are providing hotel shoppers?across?the web ? is it consistent, relevant and interesting??If not, make it a priority to kick your visual?presence?up a notch.

Don?t miss my session next Thursday: Shape Up and Shine with Social? - Subscribe here!

[1] Research from the Google Think Travel conference; The Traveler?s Road to Decision, 2011

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Source: http://blog.vfmleonardo.com/best-practice-bootcamp-session-1/

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Photo Critique #161

Friday Photo Critique is our weekly community project, where we publish a photograph submitted by one of our wonderful readers, then ask you all to offer constructive feedback on the image. It?s a great way to learn more about photography, express your viewpoint, and have your own image critiqued!


Quick Ground Rules

  1. Play nice! We?ve deliberately chosen photographs that aren?t?perfect, so please be constructive with any criticism.
  2. Feel free to offer any type of advice ? composition, lighting, post-processing etc.
  3. You can also link to photographs that you feel offer a great example of this type of image shot exceptionally well.

Without further ado, here is this week?s candidate for Friday Photo Critique!


The Photograph


Photo Details & Inspiration

  • 29mm
  • Three different shutter speeds
  • f/20
  • ISO 200

Capturing the unique glow of the evening sun in Havana. Processed in Photomatix and Photoshop CS3.

Photographer: Esben Baes


Please let us know what you think in the comments ? how would you have approached the scene or taken the photo differently? A massive thank you to everyone who commented?last week.

The most constructive and helpful comments will be featured on the site. Interested in submitting your own photo? You can?do so here!

Source: http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/photo-critique/photo-critique-161/

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