Kenneth Simpson's List: A Severe Winter Breaks Budgets as Well as Pipes

• •  This article will have a continuity factor to it because this is an ongoing story from the aspects of the financial troubles to the large amount of damage done to the city. 
• • I would give this article a rating of 92/100. Good. 
• A Severe Winter Breaks Budgets as Well as Pipes

  • That author/authors are clearly stated.

  • The date this article was written on february 15, 2014
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  • • The content of this article based on the title is serious. 
• ESSE McKINLEY and RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑAFEB. 15, 2014
• “Cities still do not have a lot of cash available, so this particular storm season is having a really severe impact on their budgets,” said James Brooks, a director for community development and infrastructure at the National League of Cities. “We’ve also had many years of disinvestment in things like roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, which makes them more vulnerable when something like this happens.”

  • The credibility is found in the paragraph and has a link to show how credible the source is.

  • In this paragraph there is a citation leading to a alternate website to give credibility to the person that gave the quote.
• We don’t ask those questions, but we do keep receipts,” Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina said in an interview. “At this point in time, you’re putting out the fires.” He said he expected to tap into the state’s emergency fund to pay for storm response. Local governments will also have to bear some of the burden, he said, and should not expect the state to pick up the whole tab.

  • The mayor of the city is a very good source for credibility but you could use critical thinking to look up her quotes from various other news sources and newspapers to validate her quotes. 
• In Baltimore, 353 water mains ruptured in January, about one-third as many as in all of 2013. South Carolina officials estimated that a single weather system last month drained $2 million from the state’s budget. A 137-year-old main that popped in Lower Manhattan turned some of the most stylish streets in Greenwich Village into a temporary Venice, and a break in Boston’s Chinatown nearly swallowed a public works truck.

  • in the sense of comparability this paragraph is very good. It shows the differences of statistics for this particular city.
• Detroit — the largest American municipality ever to enter bankruptcy, and yet to exit it — was already suffering from an aging, neglected infrastructure; Darryl Latimer, deputy director of the city’s Water and Sewerage Department, said that after a wave of retirements, the department’s staff, like the budget for water main repair, was not up to the job. To those burdens, this winter added persistent subzero temperatures and heavy snow, contributing to about 500 water main breaks in January, compared with about 300 a year earlier, forcing the city to hire outside crews to try to keep up.

  • More citations.
• Jesse McKinley reported from Syracuse, and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. Reporting was contributed by Steven Yaccino from Chicago, Alan Blinder from Atlanta, Jess Bidgood from Boston, and Dan Frosch from Denver.

  • This is who the article would be copyrighted to. 

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