Sanitation Chief John McGovern Helps Clean Up His Sandy-Battered Rockaways

"This isn't something you are supposed to see in America," John McGovern, a chief of operations for the New York City Department of Sanitation, told The Daily News. "This is like a war zone."

McGovern is a 35-year resident of the Rockaways, the 11-mile Long Island peninsula where the swelling waters and whipping winds of Hurricane Sandy upended cars, tore out the boardwalk, burned down over a hundred homes, and flooded countless more. McGovern predicts that 100,000 residents have suffered water or fire damage.