NYC Marathon

It has been cancelled in the last hour or so after huge pressure on organisers and Bloomberg the NYC mayor who initially said the show had to go on.

Just spoke to my uncle over there. He watched the news this morning, saw Bloomberg state that it was quote "definitely" going ahead, got on a 7 hour flight and 2 hours later finds out it is off. Same goes for many others. Huge problems now.

Apparently and quite understandably those already in hotels are refusing to give up the space to those who were coming over for the marathon as they are either in there because there is no power at their home, or because flights have left them stranded.

Meanwhile, he says there is real animosity between locals and those over for the marathon, to the point where he has seen fist fights in the past few hours in both the hotel and the super market. Authorities now have a difficult situation to handle in which they don't want to be perceived as focusing efforts on helping the tourists over to run, but then again now they are just as stranded as anyone else stuck in the city.

Him, those he went over with, and thousands of others are now hanging around hotel lobbies and walking the streets with no idea where they are going to sleep tonight.

I think they really should have cancelled it early and focused all efforts/water/sanitation/power/law efforts to affected areas and made sure they did so in good time. But to press on saying it was definitely going ahead only to back down about as late as possible due to a social media backlash creates a bit of a crazy situation now in which tens of thousands, many foreign, are now stuck in a city which really didn't need the extra burden. Yet another example of twitter having a real influence on current affairs as well.

Anyone else out there affected or New Yorkers with a first hand view of things? He probably won't get to a phone for the next few days as he frantically tries to get home, and I am interested in how the whole thing plays out as I missed out on the public lottery for registration 6 odd months back so could easily have been in the same position.