Jailed and Jailers Pitched In Help After Storm (Rikers)
There are plenty of unsung heroes in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, but the story of how those at New York’s least desirable address lent their muscle and might is perhaps among the most compelling.
On the night that the storm roared into the city, Dora B. Schriro, the correction commissioner, slept on a couch in her office at the Rikers Island jail, bracing for flooding and reassuring inmates and employees that the island would weather the storm.
The next morning, the vast jailhouse complex was mostly unscathed, but Ms. Schriro was stunned by the devastation the storm had wrought elsewhere.
So she decided to put her jail, and those who call it home, to work. Inmates did 6,600 pounds of laundry for people in emergency shelters. The jail supplied generators and gas to fuel them to neighborhoods in the dark, and donated long underwear usually given to inmates. And officers with medical training provided emergency care to victims.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/nyregion/clothes-and-other-storm-aid-from-rikers-jail.html?ref=nyregion
