Survey: Politicians did well handling Sandy

ALBANY -- New Yorkers give high marks to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Barack Obama for their reaction to superstorm Sandy, but are not very happy with LIPA.

A Siena College poll released Monday found that 67 percent of the voters surveyed thought Cuomo did an excellent or good job dealing with the storm and its aftermath. Obama was rated good or excellent by 61 percent of those polled, and Bloomberg by 55 percent.

That compares with 20 percent of Long Island voters who thought the Long Island Power Authority did a good or excellent job. LIPA has been under fire by critics who say it took too long to restore power to thousands of customers. Long Islanders accounted for 124 poll respondents.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority fared a lot better. It was rated good or excellent by 59 percent.

The statewide telephone poll of 822 registered voters was conducted Nov. 26 through 29. The survey has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.4 percentage points.

Siena also asked whether those polled thought Sandy and Tropical Storm Irene, the major storms that hit New York in the past two years, were "isolated weather events" or "demonstrate global climate change." Sixty-nine percent said climate change -- although Republicans were split almost evenly.

With The Associated Press