A Year After Hurricane Sandy

Thousands Still Awaiting Funds To Rebuild From Hurricane Sandy

Broad signs of recovery are undeniable from the storm that damaged or destroyed 346,000 homes in New Jersey alone. But the slow pace of aid distribution is putting many families at risk.

For more than a half-century, Whitey’s Landing on New Jersey’s Barnegat Bay has served boaters pulling up for engine repairs or clams from the bait freezer. This season, only one-third of its 30 moorings were leased, and fuel sales were down as much as 80 percent from years past.

Co-owner Deb Thompson, 74, dreams of retiring — provided anyone would want to buy docks cut off from the water by a sandbar.

One year after Hurricane Sandy devastated coastal New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, the broad signs of recovery are undeniable. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved 182,000 individual and household applications for assistance in the three states, totaling $1.4 billion. It has made $3.1 billion available to repair roads, bridges and other publicly owned property after one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history. President Barack Obama signed a bill allocating $50.5 billion in disaster aid.

Like Thompson, thousands of residents and businesses are awaiting relief. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told a Little Ferry audience on Oct. 22 only that “needs will be addressed.” His counterpart in New York, Andrew Cuomo, said affected residents will emerge stronger.

‘Sounds Incongruous’

“When you look back at the year, I really do believe that we’re going to be better for it,” Cuomo, a 55-year-old Democrat, told reporters on Oct. 23 in Albany. “I think if you asked people individually, it sounds incongruous, but those communities will be the better for it. There’s a cohesion among them, there’s a physical improvement in rebuilding.”

The slow pace of aid distribution forced 42 Shore towns, from the time Sandy struck Oct. 29 through August, to sell almost $400 million of short-term debt, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Their one-year interest rates were close to the highest since 2011. For a similar period in 2011-2012, Shore towns issued $225 million.

In New York, as much as one-fifth of the 33,500 people living in Long Beach, the state’s second-wealthiest city by median income, left and haven’t returned. Volunteers who gutted 850 homes in Ortley Beach, New Jersey, fret about protective dunes yet to be rebuilt. Connecticut opened four centers this week where homeowners may apply for $30 million in aid.

Too Late

About $700 million of aid in New York will go toward building flood walls, levies and improving electrical systems at two Long Island water-sewage treatment plants that serve more than 620,000 residents. The Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant in Nassau County, the larger of the two, was swamped by more than 9 feet of water during Sandy, County Executive Ed Mangano said on a conference call yesterday with Cuomo.

Kathy Luethold, 62, and her husband, Ray Gorman, 60, are without a furnace in Bayville, New Jersey. Gorman, retired on disability after a work accident crushed his cervical spine 10 years ago, is fielding estimates from ventilation contractors, though he doesn’t know how much he can pay. They delayed major work on their home on Barnegat Bay following instructions from FEMA, only to learn from neighbors on Oct. 16 they had missed the cut for grants.

“To find out from neighbors that the programs are closed, and it’s over and it’s done, and we were never notified?” said Gorman, seated in a living room with donated furniture. “And winter’s around the corner? We don’t have any heat.”

Loan Officer

Next door at Whitey’s Landing, Thompson recounted her own fruitless calls to local, state and federal agencies to dredge the storm-built sandbar, where boaters risk running aground or worse, trashing their drives.

Beyond the sand build-up, Thompson and her husband, Larry, bear expenses related to debris removal, abandoned craft, equipment replacement and repairs to the business his family started in 1960. On a deadline to agree to a lien stipulation for $125,000 in disaster borrowing, Thompson said she scuttled months of negotiations with a two-word answer to the federal loan officer: “Shove it.”

“We don’t have a mortgage — this is free and clear,” Thompson said in an interview Oct. 17. “I’m not going to be tied to them on my deed for another 30 years.”

‘Nothing Left’

This season, Whitey’s filled its 2,000-gallon (7,576-liter) boating-fuel tank just once, rather than the typical four or five times. Next year may spell ruin.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Thompson said. “There’s nothing left. We’ve just drained everything. My husband lost 50 years of his life to this place.”

Christie, a 51-year-old Republican whose post-Sandy performance drove his record approval in public-opinion polls, is heading to the Nov. 5 election with an almost 30-point lead over his opponent, Democrat Barbara Buono, a state senator from Metuchen.

Democrats, particularly Buono, have said the Christie administration hasn’t been responsive enough to the needs of Sandy survivors. Buono’s campaign has run Web videos profiling residents still recovering.

The legislature, which is controlled by Democrats, held four hearings on Sandy recovery efforts, including one this week in Toms River.

“The message from the testimony we have received is clear,” Assembly member Grace Spencer, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Sandy rebuilding is slow, almost at a standstill for many across the state.”

Not Forgotten

Christie says that no one said everything would be rebuilt in one year. In Little Ferry this week, he pledged to allocate $57 million for homeowner expenses such as mortgage payments, utilities and replacement furniture.

“I said right from the beginning this was an 18-to-24-month project, and it’s proven to be right,” he said.

The delays, he said, were due to the storm’s severity and bureaucracy. Sandy damaged or destroyed 346,000 homes in New Jersey, according to Christie’s office.

“People have ongoing needs that need to be addressed and that will be addressed,” he said. “We’re going to make sure that that happens because the folks who suffered the most are not going to be forgotten — not by me, at least. I can guarantee you that.”

Home Buyouts

Along New Jersey’s 126-mile (203-kilometer) Atlantic coast, the hardest-hit neighborhoods are a hodgepodge: vinyl-sided Cape Cods and ranches raised to flood-zone standards, lopsided cottages awaiting demolition, restored faux Victorians alongside empty lots.

“We’re getting a lot of complaints: ‘My home needs work and I don’t have money and I’m not happy about it,’” Debbi Winogracki, a spokeswoman for Toms River, a township with a section on the hardest-hit barrier island, said by telephone on Oct. 9.

In July, Christie’s administration began making its first post-Sandy buyout offers to homeowners along the Raritan Bay as part of a $300 million program funded with federal money. Two purchases have been completed and dozens more are expected in the next few months, Christie’s office said in a statement yesterday.

On Oct. 16, the Facebook Inc. page for the volunteer group Weekday Warriors sought helpers to place a tarp at an Ortley Beach home where a new roof leaked rainwater. Eight days earlier, the whole state was under watch for a rare tornado — it touched down in Paramus, 90 miles north, where it damaged trees — and the weather bulletin had spooked Joan DeLucia, the group’s founder.

Falling Plaster

“They still have not fixed the dunes,” DeLucia, 54, a Toms River resident, said by telephone. “It’s hurricane season. This should have been done in August.”

For Sarah Schreder, 41, August was the month when she grew fed up with falling plaster, the result of roof damage, and a lack of air conditioning and heating at her home in Old Greenwich, Connecticut.

“It was damp in the summer, and in the winter it was cold,” Schreder said by telephone. “I had to tell my husband I will not live there one more winter. I had to draw a line.”

They’re leasing in another part of Greenwich, paying rent atop their mortgage, as they apply for federal funding to raise their residence above flood levels. Another homeowner on her Old Greenwich street, his mechanical system destroyed, is sticking it out with a fireplace for heat.

‘In Hell’

“We’re in hell right now,” said 47-year-old Louis Csak, an engineer. “I can’t emotionally go through another flood.”

In Long Beach, on a barrier spit off Long Island’s southern shore, an advertising campaign featured actor and comedian Billy Crystal urged tourists to visit “my hometown.” The boardwalk, with attractions from food carts to a trapeze school, saw one of its best seasons ever, according to city council President Scott Mandel.

Even so, federal and state agencies and private insurance companies have been slow to hand out funds and as many as 7,000 residents haven’t come back, Mandel said.

“We’re disappointed that we haven’t been able to bring everyone home,” Mandel said by phone. “This is our Long Beach family, and it’s not the same without them.”

West of Long Beach, on New York City’s Staten Island, 43- year-old Aiman Youssef gives Midland Beach neighbors donated food, baby supplies and clothes in a tent where his house and home-based electronics business once stood.

Youssef had missed an insurance payment and was denied coverage when Sandy struck, and money from the state and FEMA hasn’t been enough to rebuild. When he almost lost funding this year for the hotel room he calls home, a case manager at the Jewish Community Center stepped in.

He operates the tent as part of a religious commitment to help others because the area still needs food, money and volunteers.

“We still have homes with mold, and people have left and they’re not coming back,” said Youssef, a native of Syria who has called Midland Beach home for 20 years. “It looks to me like we’re in a Third World country.”

Source of this article can be found here: www.fa-mag.com

www.brunebuilt.com

Post Sandy Flood Insurance Choices

$20,000 a year for flood insurance? Sandy survivors face tough rebuilding choices.

TOMS RIVER, N.J. – Thousands of homeowners in New York and New Jersey impacted by Hurricane Sandy are facing a tough choice that may thwart their efforts to rebuild: Comply with costly new federal construction guidelines or prepare to pay annual flood insurance rates that could top $20,000.

New federal flood maps revealed in June added 68,000 structures in New York City and thousands more in New Jersey to flood zones. Now, affected homeowners are being forced to make drastic changes to their residences, such as elevating them on pilings, or incur punishing new insurance premiums that will take effect by mid-2015. Given the new rules, many Sandy survivors are grappling with whether they should alter their properties – or leave.

Kevin Faller and Karen Spanover, of Toms River, N.J., learned that they would have to invest tens of thousands of dollars to elevate their home or else pay higher flood insurance premiums.

“We are faced with something that we can’t overcome,” said police officer Kevin Faller, 52, a Toms River resident who has decided to give up his home rather than comply with the new requirements. Having already lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in home equity post-Sandy, Faller said he and his wife could not afford “this tsunami of expenses coming toward us.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency began updating coastal flood maps across the country in 2009, a process it expects to complete by 2017. In New York City and New Jersey, the work began a few years before Hurricane Sandy struck on Oct. 29, 2012, damaging or destroying 365,000 homes in New Jersey and another 20,000 in New York City. After a public comment period, the region’s maps are expected to become final by mid-2015, putting into effect new insurance premiums.

The agency, which has released estimates showing that rates could range from a few hundred dollars for the most compliant residences to $1,800, $10,700 and more than $20,000, says individual premiums will vary and homeowners must consult an insurance agent to determine what they will pay.

Making matters worse for coastal homeowners, federally subsidized flood insurance for primary residences will start to phase out by late next year, eventually forcing about 1.1 million property owners to pay the substantially higher full-market rates. A law passed by Congress last summer eliminated subsidies for the National Flood Insurance Program, which is $24 billion in debt in the wake of massive storms such as Hurricane Katrina.

“Unfortunately, [Sandy survivors] are suffering through this catastrophic event and they are looking at increased insurance premiums,” said Bill McDonnell, FEMA’s mitigation branch director for New Jersey and an agency specialist for New York. “What we are hoping, though, is that [Sandy] has raised the awareness of the probability of this occurring again” and that homeowners “mitigate their properties to become more resilient.”
A new home under construction in Breezy Point, N.Y., where property owners are required to elevate their homes or incur drastic hikes to their insurance premiums.

“They may be putting out more money now,” he said. “But in the end they are going to suffer less damage to their property and the potential loss of life as well.”

With that in mind, some families are moving ahead to comply with the new requirements despite the cost. Based on an early map released by FEMA in mid-December, Marlo Lutz, 44, and her husband, Darrin, 47, decided to elevate their two-floor Toms River home to 13 feet on pillars and piers, a $65,000 investment that required cashing in a college fund and raiding savings.

“I’ll never have to worry again when there’s a storm,” Marlo said. “Everything about it is just going to be better for us.”

In Breezy Point, N.Y., a coastal enclave hard-hit by Sandy, homeowner Jim Kelly has made a similar calculation. So far, Kelly has spent $104,000 to raise his home to 8.5 feet, with more work to go. He and his wife have used savings and dipped into their 401(k) plans to help cover construction costs, which are expected to reach $220,000.

For Kelly, raising his property has been expensive, time-consuming and stressful, but he said he is just anxious to move his wife Samantha and their 5-year-old son Aiden back home, hopefully by Thanksgiving. “It’s definitely been rough, to say the least,” he said.

FEMA

FEMA’s draft schedule of preliminary flood insurance rate maps for coastal counties.

Some Sandy survivors are finding the hassle and cost of complying with the new guidelines to be insurmountable.

When FEMA released the early version of the flood maps, John “Jack” Thompson, a 70-year-old mechanical engineer, discovered that his small ranch home in Toms River would have to be raised from six to 14 feet and placed on pilings. If he didn’t comply, he learned, his future annual flood insurance could skyrocket to about $31,000. (FEMA has adjusted that estimate to more than $20,000.)

Though FEMA eased the rebuilding requirements for his neighborhood in June, the value of Thompson’s home has plummeted from around $400,000 to $10,000, according to a county tax assessment. He is contemplating using his flood insurance payments to pay off his mortgage, tear his home down and leave. The storm’s aftermath, Thompson said, has left him financially “dead” and his dreams of retirement postponed.

Meanwhile, half of the homes around him are empty, about ten have been demolished and many are for sale. “It’s depressing. I really hate to think about it,” he said of the changes in his once lively neighborhood situated on tiny lagoons.

Some government aid is available to homeowners trying to meet the new guidelines. New Jersey will provide grants of up to $150,000, a FEMA-funded grant will offer $30,000, and those insured by the NFIP can receive up to another $30,000. New York City said it would also give money to homeowners to elevate their properties through U.S. Department of Housing (HUD) funds.
Jack Thompson stands in his Toms River home, which would need to be elevated to comply with new FEMA rules.

But according to Marc Roy, chief of staff for FEMA’s Louisiana operations in 2006-07, such grant programs don’t always work. He criticized “The Road Home,” a HUD program administered in Louisiana after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as having had “limited success.”

“That program was marked by all kinds of cost overruns and mismanagement and pretty much has faded from view,” said Roy, an adjunct professor at Tulane University’s Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy. (According to HUD, nearly 130,000 residents – or 99 percent of eligible applicants – had received more than $8.9 billion from the program).

When homeowners struggle to pay for repairs to their storm-damaged properties, some foreclose and leave, devastating the local housing market, said Roy, whose New Orleans neighborhood experienced about ten foreclosures post-Katrina. “Responsible people are having their whole lives ruined … as a result of both the natural catastrophe and the man-made part of the catastrophe, which is poor assistance being available to those who have really worked for it,” he said.

Faller and his wife Karen Spanover, 46, aren’t waiting for government aid. In January, the couple decided to give up their home in Toms River, believing that investing tens of thousands of dollars to comply with FEMA’s new rules would not be worth it in their struggling neighborhood. They’ve asked their bank to accept a deed in lieu of foreclosure, in which they would hand their home back to the lender.

Faller said he tried to see the tough choice as a business decision, while Spanover said it was ultimately one of “survival.”

“We’ve been fighting for so long,” Spanover said. “Every time we see light at the end of the tunnel it kind of closes. We’re definitely still hoping for the best.”

Are you facing new FEMA requirements for your area? Contact the reporter with your story at miranda.leitsinger@nbcuni.com

Source of this article: By Miranda Leitsinger, Staff Writer, NBC News

www.brunebuilt.com

Six Months After Superstorm Sandy

Six Months Report after Superstorm Sandy: From Pre-Disaster to Recovery

Timeline, milestones in response and recovery, before-and-after photos and videos plus data on disaster assistance, debris removal and other aspects of disaster operations.

Oct. 22    Tropical Storm Sandy forms.

Oct. 24    Storm strengthens to Category 1 Hurricane.

Oct. 27    Sandy weakens to Tropical Storm.

Oct. 28     Re-intensifies to Category 1 Hurricane.

Oct. 28     The President declares an emergency for the state of New Jersey.

Oct. 29     Sandy briefly strengthens to Category 2 hurricane. From Oct. 30 to Nov. 5, twenty-four states from Florida to Maine and as far west as Michigan and Wisconsin are impacted.

Oct. 29     Sandy makes landfall as a tropical storm near Brigantine, New Jersey.

IMPACTS

• New Jersey and New York take the brunt of Sandy’s assault.

• There are 2.7 million power outages in New Jersey alone.

• There is widespread damage to the transportation infrastructure.

• Phone, cable and other communication lines are disrupted.

• Operations at  2 oil refineries, 11 petroleum terminals and 2 petroleum pipelines are disrupted.

• 8.5 million cubic yards of mixed debris which includes 2.5 million cubic yards of sand and silt deposited on road and waterways, impeding travel.

• Houses along miles of New Jersey coastline are severely damaged or destroyed by wind and flooding.

• More than 37,000 primary residences and approximately 9,300 rental units receive major damage.

• Businesses in 113 of 565 New Jersey municipalities experience a combined $382 million in commercial property loss.

• Natural gas supply lines on barrier islands are completely destroyed, sustaining an estimated $97 million in damage.

• Within days, mold becomes a problem in unoccupied houses without electricity, creating a health hazard.

RESPONSE

• 2 FEMA National Incident Management Assistant Teams (IMAT) and 1 regional IMAT team report to the disaster pre-landfall.

• 14 Emergency Support Functions, Federal Disaster Response Coordination activated.

• 16 FEMA Mobile Communications Office Vehicles are deployed.

• Mobile Emergency Response Support sends 34 personnel and vehicles.

• 650 personnel from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers respond to the disaster to conduct draining of sewage treatment facilities, mobilization of 100 strike teams for debris clearance, transport and installation of generators. Team receives 335 requests for generators; 106 are installed at the peak of the emergency.

• On Nov. 1, 2012, in the immediate response to the New Jersey disaster, FEMA’s Community Relations specialists start circulating through storm-ravaged neighborhoods to offer assistance and informational materials in nine languages. On Nov. 5, 432 specialists and 222 FEMA Corps members are in some of the most heavily impacted areas of the state.

• Debris clearance crews remove debris from roadways and make repairs to restore power to traffic signals.

• 520 personnel assist with tree removal, clearing 728 miles of roads and access routes.

• 113 emergency shelters open, serving 6,477 storm survivors at the peak of the disaster.

RESPONSE AND RECOVERY

As of April 23, 2013:

• Total federal allocations for Superstorm Sandy Response and Recovery in New Jersey: 

$1.1 billion

• Total amount approved for Housing and Other Needs Assistance: $388 million
• Total Federal Share Obligated for Public Assistance: $262.9 million

Housing Assistance:

• FEMA has approved more than $334 million in housing assistance grants to help repair or replace housing damaged or destroyed by Superstorm Sandy, with an average housing assistance award of $6,088 per applicant.

• FEMA issued a mission assignment through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to construct/renovate 114 temporary housing units at Fort Monmouth, a former military base, at an estimated cost of $3.3 million.

Individual Assistance:

• 89,025 New Jersey residents have visited FEMA Disaster Recovery Centers.

• More than 60,500 registrations have been approved for assistance.

• More than 480 volunteer agencies were active in the disaster recovery effort, reporting a total of 866,400 volunteer hours which equaled nearly $24 million in work value.

• 14 Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster are now working on long-term recovery projects in New Jersey, including the American Red Cross, the Community Food Bank of New Jersey and Church World Service.

Other Needs Assistance:

• FEMA approved more than $53.4 million dollars in Other Needs Assistance to 18,433 Sandy survivors.

Transitional Sheltering Assistance:

• FEMA’s Transitional Sheltering Assistance program has provided transitional shelter to more

than 5,500 Sandy Survivors.

• FEMA has provided a total of 195,000 room nights in 435 hotels and motels at a cost of more than $23 million, while displaced survivors developed permanent housing solutions.

Disaster Unemployment Assistance

• 3,365 applications for disaster unemployment assistance were approved.

• More than $4 million in disaster unemployment assistance has been provided to Sandy survivors who became unemployed as a result of the storm.

Public Assistance:

• 1,707 requests for Public Assistance were received from the public sector and private nonprofit organizations.
• FEMA and the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management held 1,420 kickoff meetings with eligible applicants. A kickoff meeting includes a one-on-one session that establishes the partnership among FEMA, the state and the applicant.

• More than $262.9 million in federal share dollars has been obligated to the state of New Jersey primarily for Category A (debris removal) and Category B (emergency protective measures) assistance.

• Ninety-nine percent of Right-of-Way debris totaling more than 8.5 million cubic yards has been removed, with the remaining 1 percent slated for removal by early May.

• Out of 2,879 Subgrant applications, 2,051 have been obligated so far. Eligible subgrantees include state and local governments and private nonprofits such as medical, educational, utility, emergency and custodial care facilities that apply to the state for reimbursement of eligible disaster related expenditures.

• FEMA has assisted applicants with 84 projects totaling $79 million for boardwalk and beach repair including boardwalks, emergency protective measures, marinas, bulkheads and sea walls.

• A few projects currently under construction expected to be open to the public by Memorial Day include:

• $19 million for the Atlantic Highlands harbor reconstruction of the marina
• $12 million for reconstruction of the Belmar boardwalk, and
• $7.6 million for the reconstruction of the Seaside Heights boardwalk.

Operations:

• FEMA Operations has activated 430 Mission Assignments in support of the State in response to Superstorm Sandy and obligated $100 million in direct federal assistance and $40 million in federal operating support and technical assistance.

Mitigation:

• Disaster Recovery Centers counseled 23,465 applicants on Mitigation techniques.

• Mitigation conducted outreach in 28 building supply stores along the coastal area.

• Mitigation technical assistance was provided to 406 Federal, State and local stakeholders to identify mitigation opportunities with 1,300 site visits completed to date.

• New Jersey property owners have received $3.2 billion in National Flood Insurance Program payments for damages caused by flooding from Superstorm Sandy.

FEMA Corps:

• In addition to extensive work with Community Relations in the recovery, thirteen FEMA Corps teams with 114 members currently are working at the New Jersey JFO.
• Most Corps Members are working in a Public Assistance capacity. Other Corps Members are working at the JFO in External Affairs, Logistics, Planning, Individual Assistance and Federal Disaster Recovery Coordination.

External Affairs:

• In addition to the massive neighborhood-by-neighborhood outreach effort in response to Superstorm Sandy, FEMA’s CR specialists have contacted more than 100,000 individuals, 25,000 businesses and 10,000 Faith and Community-based organizations.

• Private Sector specialists have engaged with 555 Private Sector stakeholders, disseminating electronic disaster assistance information to 5.8 million New Jerseyans, focusing on business continuity and preparedness. The New Jersey Business and Industry Association disseminated FEMA information via utility bills to more than 21,000 members and 1.3 million employees.

• FEMA’s Intergovernmental Affairs specialists have connected with more than 900 community leaders, handled 215 questions and referrals from mayors and other city officials, has assisted the governor’s staff in establishing a state IGA department and has worked closely with public officials on key issues such as Advisory Base Flood Elevation maps, NFIP, Repetitive Loss Inspections and other community concerns.

• Congressional Affairs staff continues outreach activity to the New Jersey Congressional delegation and has responded to more than 775 inquiries regarding constituent issues related to Superstorm Sandy.

• Planning and Products section has produced more than 500 individual communications including 140 news releases, 70 public service announcements, 10 recovery bulletins, 12 flyers, 5 brochures and 40 Congressional updates. FEMA Speakers Bureau has hosted 229 community events reaching 33,227 individuals with recovery information.

• The Joint Information Center has fielded more than 9,000 media inquiries and currently averages about 28 media interviews per week. The NJ FEMA twitter handle has 3, 237 followers, has produced 780 tweets, and averages six tweets and seven re-tweets per tweet.

Small Business Administration

• SBA has approved more than $731 million in low-interest disaster loans to homeowners, renters and businesses.

• $606 million of that figure was loaned to residential applicants.

Then and Now

This Mantoloking home was knocked off its foundation by Superstorm Sandy. The homeowners chose to elevate their home to mitigate against future disasters.

In Seaside Heights, the historic boardwalk was severely damaged and debris lined the beach after Superstorm Sandy. While the iconic roller coaster remains until a contractor can remove it, the boardwalk is being rebuilt and debris has been removed from the beach.

Superstorm Sandy left debris strewn across this area in Beach Haven Inlet. Six month later, the area is largely free of debris.

After Superstorm Sandy, the south end of the bridge in Avon by the Sea was closed. Now, the bridge is open and structures have returned to normal.

The Lifeguard Station in Sandy Hook was surrounded by piles of sand after Superstorm Sandy. These piles of sand have been removed and relocated six months later.

After Superstorm Sandy, the lawn of a Sea Bright home was completely covered in debris. With the help of FEMA in collaboration with state and local partners, homes like this one have had debris removed from their yards.

Source of this article can be found here: FEMA.gov

Six months after Sandy: ‘Home Sweet Home’ for some, others still adrift.

Six months after Superstorm Sandy slammed into the Jersey Shore, a heavily damaged home in Mantiloking sits untouched.

By Miranda Leitsinger, Staff Writer, NBC News

BREEZY POINT, N.Y. — The construction noises are almost constant at daytime in this coastal enclave six months after Hurricane Sandy, but for many residents whose homes were badly damaged, recovery is moving at a slow pace – or not at all.

Many of those displaced by the so-called superstorm say they are stuck in limbo, trying to raise money to pay for repairs or replace their homes while coming to grips with new, federal flood-zone maps that many fear will make it too costly for them to return.

“We’re no better off than we were six months ago,” said Kieran Burke, a fire marshal who lost his home to a massive fire that erupted at the height of the storm. ” … I’d like to have an idea when I can tell my wife our children can go home.”

Burke’s dilemma is not unique to hard-hit Breezy Point, where more than 75 percent of the homes were either consumed by fire or suffered flood damage.

Some 39,000 people in New Jersey remain displaced by the storm, Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday. The number of New Yorkers still out of their homes is unclear, though federal officials said 350 households in the affected region are still getting money for hotel or motel stays.

“We’ve just got the tip of the iceberg in terms of the amount of work that needs to be done,” said Michael Byrne, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s senior official in New York state for the Sandy response and recovery.

Though people now have some resources to rebuild, he said, they “still have some tough questions to answer … especially people that are in high-risk areas: ‘How do I rebuild?’ or ‘Do I leave, do I seek a buyout?’ So, there’s still a lot of tough issues to be worked out.”

While some neighbors are almost ready to move back home, others are still unsure how much of their property can be rebuilt following the storm.

Sandy wreaked havoc in the Caribbean before blasting ashore on Oct. 29 near Brigantine, N.J., leaving more than 100 people dead in the U.S. alone. Nearly 74,000 homes and apartments in New York and New Jersey, where it made landfall on Oct. 29, sustained damage, according to FEMA.

Some 450 homes in New York were destroyed by the storm, while approximately 46,000 in New Jersey were destroyed or sustained major damage, according to FEMA.

FEMA has given more than $1.3 billion to more than 180,000 Sandy victims in Maryland, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. The National Flood Insurance Program has paid more than $7.1 billion in claims.

Some survivors whose homes sustained minor damage quickly returned home, as did some others who were able to shelter in place while they repaired and rebuilt.

But in devastated communities like the Irish-American enclave of Breezy Point, many residents had to wait for the gas, power and water to be restored and insurance funds to come through — if they did — while still paying mortgages plus rent.

“Some families and some lives have come back together quickly and well and some people are up and running,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said last week. “Some people are still very much in the midst of the recovery. You still have people in hotel rooms. You still have people doubled up. You still have people fighting with insurance companies, and for them it’s been terrible and horrendous.”

That seems a fitting description of Karly and Anthony Carozza’s situation in their neighborhood in Brick Township, N.J., which is dotted with “for sale” signs. Reconstruction work immediately ground to a halt in January, when FEMA released initial drafts of its new flood maps, which placed the community into the highest risk zone, they said.

Karly Carrozza and her husband, Anthony, can’t start the rebuilding in Brick Township, N.J., until FEMA’s flood zone map — and the guidelines that come with it — are finalized.

If the maps are finalized as drawn, residents’ homes would have to be raised 11 feet and placed on pilings. Some state residents who don’t meet the requirements could face flood insurance premiums of up to $31,000 a year, according to Gov. Christie.

“The cost to put this on pilings would not be worth the value of the house. It wouldn’t make any sense,” Anthony Carozza, 34, an equities trader, said this month of their small home on a lagoon.

But the couple would have to pay off their $300,000 mortgage if they wanted to demolish the house and start anew.

“We’re all kind of in the same boat in a sense that until they have the final maps come out we can’t make any decisions,” Karly Carozza, 36, an account executive, said.

She has joined a group of New Jersey citizens facing the same difficult choices — called Stop FEMA Now — to advocate for changes to the flood maps. They also have recently ventured to New York City to band forces with homeowners there.

She feels if they don’t act, their coastal community will never be the same.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, a bill has been reintroduced in New York that would provide legal protection for architects who volunteer their services during disasters. New York Assemblyman Steve Englebright, the bill’s sponsor hopes it will be voted on by June. NBCNews.com’s Dara Brown speaks with Englebright and also Lance Brown of the American Institute of Architects about the proposal.

“You could be in the middle class and enjoy a house on the water and I just feel like that’s all going to change because a lot of the people around us who are going to walk away — their homes are worth nothing,” she said. People who could afford to put the houses up to code “are going to come in and just scoop up the property,” she added.

In the meantime, the couple is staying nearby with Karly’s parents to avoid paying rent in addition to their mortgage. Tarp and plastic cover part of the inside of their home, which took in a few feet of water.

“There’s people whose homes look much worse than ours, but it’s almost like we’re in no different of a predicament because our hands are tied,” Karly said. “We can’t make any decisions, we can’t move back. …We’re in no different a predicament today than we were the day after the storm.”

Shifting sands have covered nearly all remnants of Kieran Burke’s bungalow in Breezy Point.

The family home, which sat for decades on what were known as the “sand lanes” in this idyllic seaside community, burned to the ground with nearly 130 other residences in the fire – the largest in the city’s modern history – that was triggered by the storm.

Kieran and Jennifer Burke, with 2-year-old Kieran Jr., visit the lot where their home stood before it burned to the ground the night that Hurricane Sandy hit.

Located in one of the older parts of the private cooperative, Burke’s home, like those of his neighbors, wasn’t fronted on a city-mapped street. That means he will need approval from the NYC Board of Standards and Appeals on rebuilding plans.

The agency has vowed to expedite the process, and the Breezy Point Cooperative is working with architects to design homes that will meet expected new city building requirements, as well as those from the flood maps – a preliminary version of which should be released in the coming weeks. So Burke is still waiting to break ground.

“It’s devastating. It’s angering,” he said of the shifting planning landscape. “I’m paying a mortgage on an empty plot of land, we’re paying rent in a place that we’re displaced in, that I have no conception of when I’m going to have the ability to move out of.”

Burke, a New York City fire marshal, and his wife, Jennifer, both 40, have a two-year-old son, Kieran Junior, and they just welcomed another boy, Matthew, a little more than two weeks ago. They’ve been living in an office converted into an apartment in Yonkers, north of Manhattan and about an hour’s drive from Breezy Point.

“It doesn’t really seem to look any different than when I was here before, and I would have thought at least some of the other parts of it would have progressed a bit,” Jennifer Burke, a pharmaceutical research manager, said this month as she stood on the spot where her kitchen used to stand. “We’re just still waiting and still hoping. … The hardest part is just not knowing.”

A few blocks away, in a corner of the community facing Jamaica Bay, the Fischers have moved back into their two-story home, even though it sits amid empty lots where neighbors once lived and is still being worked on.

Christina and Barry Fischer, parents of five children, broke their lease early from a rental in northern Queens in late March because their FEMA rental aid ran out and they had expenses piling up (the FEMA money later came through).

Some painting, tiling, sanding and cabinet work is among what remains to be done on the first floor, but now their children – ranging in age from 5 to 15 – can ride their bikes on Breezy Point’s quiet streets, go to church or the store by themselves, play on the beach and catch up with friends who have returned.

When asked how it was to be home, one of the children, William, 10, exclaimed “Great!” as he snacked on Mallomars. “I can actually go outside.”

Georgia Fischer, 5, sifts sand with beach toys. She has Charcot Marie Tooth Disease, a common nerve disorder that can make it hard to walk, and apraxia, a speech disorder. Her parents had to re-arrange therapy and classes for her in the wake of the storm.

Nonetheless, the road has been hard, with Christina Fischer, 35, taking leave from her job as an adjunct professor at St. John’s University in Queens to focus on rebuilding, including battling with the insurance over money and fighting for months to get help from the city’s “Rapid Repairs” program.

That program, a first-ever federal-local initiative, offered to install free boilers, hot water heaters and do the necessary electrical work to restore power, but many who applied encountered long delays and sloppy workmanship when they did get service.

The family also has two special needs children whose classes and therapy sessions had to be re-arranged in the aftermath as people were displaced and classrooms flooded.

But the Fischers weren’t complaining in early April when a reporter met with them to take stock of how far they’d come. Tim, 7, pushed his bike through the sand, Georgia, 5, watched a movie on a computer tablet and the family dog, Scout, sat atop a pile of laundry as Barry Fischer, a 45-year-old electrician, tested out the new washer and dryer.

“The three greatest words in the English language: home sweet home,” Barry said. “There … is nothing better.”

Source of this article can be found here: NBCNEWS.com

Key figures on Superstorm Sandy, 6 months later

-The Associated Press

Flags decorate a fence Thursday, April 25, 2013, in Brick, N.J., around the burned remains of more than 60 small bungalows at Camp Osborn which were destroyed last October during Superstorm Sandy. Six months after Sandy devastated the Jersey shore and New York City and pounded coastal areas of New England, the region is dealing with a slow and frustrating, yet often hopeful, recovery. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

The Jet Star roller coaster rests in the ocean Thursday, April 25, 2013, in Seaside Heights, N.J., near the rebuilding of the boardwalk. Six months after Superstorm Sandy, the roller coaster that plunged off a pier in Seaside Heights is still in the ocean, although demolition plans are finally moving forward. The region is dealing with a slow and frustrating, yet often hopeful, recovery. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Superstorm Sandy, a hybrid of a hurricane and two cold-weather systems, struck on Oct. 29, concentrating most of its fury on New Jersey, New York and Connecticut and becoming one of the most expensive storms in history. Six months later, the region is still recovering and the scope of the storm has come into sharper focus. Figures are as of April 26.

DEATHS: The National Hurricane Center attributes 72 deaths in the United States directly to Sandy and 87 more indirectly, from causes such as hypothermia due to power outages, carbon monoxide poisoning and accidents during cleanup efforts, for a total of 159.

DAMAGE: The Hurricane Center estimated Sandy’s damage at $50 billion, second only to the $108 billion caused by Hurricane Katrina in Gulf Coast states in 2005. Congress approved more than $60 billion in storm aid for Sandy victims and their communities.

HOUSING AID: The Federal Emergency Management Agency has paid out $959 million for housing assistance and $848 million to communities and nonprofit groups in New York state, and $387.4 million in housing grants and $263 million to communities and nonprofit groups in New Jersey.

DISASTER LOANS: The Small Business Administration has made $1.4 billion in disaster loans for homeowners, renters and businesses in New York, and $731 million in New Jersey.

FLOOD INSURANCE: The National Flood Insurance Program has paid $3.4 billion in claims in New York, and another $3.3 billion in New Jersey.

UTILITIES: Jersey Central Power & Light says 1.3 million customers lost power in New Jersey. It cut 65,000 trees to help restore power, fixed 34,000 downed wires and put up 6,700 new utility poles. In New York, Consolidated Edison has strung 60 miles of new electrical cable after the storm and eventually restored power to more than 1 million customers.

Sources: National Hurricane Center, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Jersey Central Power & Light, Con Ed

Southern section of Seaside Heights boardwalk set to open this week

By Lisa Rose/The Star-Ledger 

The southern section of the Seaside Heights boardwalk could reopen as early as Wednesday.Lisa Rose/The Star-Ledger

For the past six months, the goal in Seaside Heights was to rebuild the town’s boardwalk by Memorial Day.

Contractors are working ahead of schedule, however, and a section of wooden walkway could be open by the end of this week, said Mike Loundy, director of community improvements.

“It’s our hope to have the southern section of the boardwalk open by Friday or Saturday,” Loundy said today. “We’re anxious to reopen. Our vendors are anxious. Our customers are anxious. Nothing is written in stone, but we’re optimistic that we can have a three- to five-block section open to the public.”

Temporary railings are being installed so tourists can stroll on the boardwalk from Webster Avenue south to Seaside Park, but
there won’t be beach access before Memorial Day. Loundy said he is confident the northern section of the boardwalk will be completed by the holiday deadline.

In January, work had yet to begin on the Seaside Heights boardwalk.Lisa Rose/The Star-Ledger

“Over the last week and over the next week, we’re going to receive somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 pieces of lumber,” said Loundy, who also runs Seaside Realty. “It’s coming from all over the country. We expect to pick up speed with the lumber deliveries. The northern part of the boardwalk is 20 feet narrower than the southern end, so that will go faster. All the piles are in. The heavy lifting is done.”

Meanwhile, the submerged Jet Star roller coaster is on track to be removed from the water before Memorial Day.

“We’re optimistic within the next two weeks, possibly sooner, it will begin to be taken out,” Loundy said.

Loundy said he doesn’t know where the carnival ride, or pieces of it, will wind up. The coaster is owned by the Casino Pier amusement park, not the borough.

“It’s a pretty hot commodity,” said Loundy. “It wouldn’t surprise me if it turns into souvenirs of some form.”

Danny Merk, owner of the Shore Store shown on MTV’s “Jersey Shore,” said he’ll be sad to see the Jet Star go. His shop’s in the northern section of the boardwalk near the coaster.

“I’d like to see it stay in the water,” Merk said. “For the north end, it’s a little bit slower on the boardwalk and the Jet Star is an attraction. People love to take pictures of it. People have a lot of memories about it, and I’d like to keep it this summer. We lost a lot of roller coasters, a lot of rides. Every day, people ask me, ‘How can I get a picture of that?’ ”

The Jet Star is being salvaged by Weeks Marine, a Cranford-based contractor that operates the area’s largest floating crane. The company’s giant crane lifted the “Miracle on the Hudson” plane out of the water in 2009. The same piece of equipment was used to lower the space shuttle Enterprise onto the flight deck of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum last spring.

Source of this article can be found here: NJ.com

Unfinished FEMA Flood Maps Put Sandy Victims In Limbo

by TRACEY SAMUELSON

Enlarge image

A home damaged by Superstorm Sandy in Union Beach, N.J., sits on a raised platform to protect it from future flooding.

Mel Evans/AP

Superstorm Sandy pummeled the East Coast six months ago, and, as with other natural disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was there from day one, finding people temporary shelter and later supporting rebuilding efforts.

FEMA also has a lesser-known role. It oversees the creation of flood maps, which model the risk of flooding in different areas during storms. These maps are also used to set building codes and flood insurance rates. In New York and New Jersey, FEMA is updating those maps, and so far many homeowners don’t like what they are seeing.

‘Flying By The Seat Of Their Pants’

Sitting in a makeshift office in his garage, George Kasimos is “FEMA-ing.” That’s what he calls the research and organizing he does with a group he started called Stop FEMA Now.

“FEMA is flying by the seat of their pants,” Kasimos says, “and we have to rebuild our homes with their seat-of-their-pants rules and regulations.”

The first floor of his house in Toms River, N.J., flooded during the storm and he had to gut it. He says the construction could have been done in January, but he stopped work for a few months when FEMA released a new version of its flood maps, which are used to set insurance rates.

“I thought I was on that show Punk’d, to be honest. I just didn’t believe it,” he says.

Kasimos figured if he doesn’t raise his home by 4 feet, his flood insurance would go from $1,000 per year to $15,000 per year. Because on these new maps, Kasimos is now in what’s called a Velocity Zone, or V Zone. This means that in a “hundred-year storm,” FEMA modeling predicts waves three feet or higher would hit his home.

Kasimos is supposed to elevate and put his house on pilings, which means lifting it off its foundation, moving it out of the way, and plunging big telephone poles into the ground for his house to sit atop. But Kasimos lives on a lagoon, not the open ocean. So he thinks he should be in an A Zone, at risk for flooding, but not wave damage. In an A Zone, he’d still elevate, but he could skip the costly pilings.

“In an A Zone, it cost about $50,000 for an average home … for a V Zone, it’s about $150,000,” he says.

Kasimos took his plight to Facebook, and now has more than 3,500 likes for his group; they’ve started meeting near-weekly.

Literally A Work In Progress

“We do anticipate the V Zone in certain areas becoming smaller, it is an advisory product,” FEMA’s Bill McDonnell says.

McDonnell says he agrees the maps are a work in progress. When Sandy hit, FEMA was already two years into a project to update the flood maps, which in some areas dated back to the 1980s. It generally takes 3-5 years to finish, but FEMA decided to release an early version, like a rough draft, so that people could have the most recent data available to decide how to rebuild.

“[It was] just out there for informational purposes, and then the state of New Jersey adopted it as a land use policy,” he says, “so that if people were going to rebuild, they have to rebuild to that standard.”

So the “advisory” maps basically became building code for repairing properties that have substantial storm damage. The state didn’t want people to rebuild based on old data and have to lift their houses higher later.

FEMA says the maps will change, but the number of people affected and the requirements for rebuilding will only decrease when the maps are finalized. That leaves Jersey Shore homeowners, like Kasimos, to decide whether to do work on their homes now that they may find out later wasn’t actually needed.

Kasimos has decided to rebuild without elevating for now. He’s trying to fix only what he has to in order to get back to normal. Even then, he’s still doing work he’ll have to tear up when he eventually elevates.

“[I'm] going to have to take apart the deck, my stairs, the siding, things like that, absolutely,” he says.

FEMA says it understands the urgency and is moving as fast as it can. It expects to start releasing a new version of the maps county by county, perhaps as early as June.

Source of this article can be found here: NPR.com

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