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AS AirTrain construction marched along the Van Wyck Expressway in southeast Queens last summer, Carol Gibson got the phone calls.
The Port Authority hired Gibson two years ago as its community liaison for the coming rail link from Jamaica to Kennedy Airport.
The Rochdale Village resident couldn't stop the incessant noise and resulting vibrations that shook residents from their sofas and beds. But she definitely felt their pain.
"There are issues that the homeowners have and I do not have the ability to say, 'I'll get it done for you,'" said Gibson, a veteran public administrator.
"They'll call up and say, stop the pile-driving, it's making noise. I can't stop it," added the 61-year-old grandmother, who grew up in Jamaica and has a passion for community outreach. "So I have to say things to them like, 'I'll make sure there's measuring equipment there to make sure the vibration does not exceed what is in the state and city law.' But I can't stop the pile-driving. And that's very hard sometimes to hear the homeowners talk about their fears and I can't do anything about it."
But Gibson is not entirely powerless or unrewarded. Many credit the $53,314-a-year liaison with helping homeowners and landlords pursuing damage claims to navigate through the bureaucracy known as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. And the interaction with residents satisfies what Gibson - who often gives out her home number - called her activist streak.
Since August, 1999, nearly 700 people from mainly Jamaica, Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park have called the special AirTrain hotline. As of Oct. 26, 250 residents had filed claims, with most saying the construction had left cracks in their walls and steps. Almost half - 121 - remain unresolved. Ninety-one have resulted in payment to residents, at an average of $2,000 per claim; 17 were withdrawn and 21 denied by an insurance company.
From her second-floor office in the AirTrain satellite office on Archer Avenue in downtown Jamaica, Gibson will make visitors wait while she calls a homeowner who believed an insurance company's estimate was too low.
"When are you going to send the second estimate?" she asked. The homeowner said he was sending it right away. "OK," she said,...