23' in Belmar?

for the people that think the state is just "sitting" on the money. how do you best suppose they distribute it?

 

yea I totally agree... I would put this guy in the minority. plus, I think a lot has to be said with the way he was acting... I mean come on... really? does the guy have any class? isint there a better way to get his message across? its kinda a shame. I would say he is a minority/crazy.

putting politics aside, im thankful for all that Christie did and his reaction. It could have been much worse then it was. Im not saying that everything work great- cause it didn't.... but given the circumstances I think he did a great job. you would be hard pressed to find better from any other elected official. he is a great leader, making good choices and sticking to them, not swaying in the wind. and looking out for the people.

 

I also agree that it was such a long process to go thru to get the money... but looking at the other side of that (for a better sake of understand, and not getting mad)- the banks/feds/gov cant just go around throwing money out at people who 'claim' to have a loss. plus- think about the thousands of claims they had to go thru (to make sure they where true claims)! its not just one city, its the whole NE! That's ALOT of work and time... plus, we can only really blame our society for this- the many greedy scum bags that put in claims once they hear the banks are giving out money.... even though they didn't have any damage. seriously... as much as we want to trust the banks and gov... can they trust us? no wonder we all had to jump through hoops.
Don't miss understand me, im not saying one person is right or the other... im just presenting both sides of the story... I too don't think they responded quick enough- and with enough.... but whos to blame???

 

My only criticisms of the whole thing would be the local and state government's encroachment on the rights of homeowners regarding access back to their properties and living on site after a house was deemed significantly damaged.

I was raised to never invite government into my life and to do things on my own. I just wanted government out of the way to be quite honest. I am not a wealthy person and I found it quite odd that some people much better off than my family and with less damage than me were taking advantage of the support facilities. Call it pride or whatever but to me that stuff is reserved for those who really need it.

 

Less paperwork, more feet and eyes on the streets. Representatives visiting, assessing damage/repairs, and cutting checks like FEMA did. I know about accountability and CYA, but the bureaucratic constraints are out of hand.

I agree with CJ about not inviting the government in, but that is unavoidable with the NFIP if you have a mortgage

 

I totally agree

 

i always hated Christie before the storm.he did step up for sandy,but I also heard how he used like 23 million worth of sandy aid to fund his campaign to go around other states trying to become president.

what people fail to realize about the sandy recovery,about fema and Christie giving money out,is its not for all people.take fema for example.if u own a house,own a car,own anything,fema does not cover it,its up to ur insurance and insurance never pays out.i rent so fema came through.i know I was one of the first 10 people in my town to register with fema,before they were even advertising.i went to my ex's house and she was with a fema guy doing the paperwork and I told the guy go to my house afterwards.

theres still signs in my town that say still waiting for fema.if u own a house or pay a mortgage,its up to ur homeowners insurance.most houses on the shore were wrecked so bad,and they didn't have flood insurance,or even contents protection with their homeowners insurance that the owners just said phucket.I talked to so many people from everywhere from seaside to Manasquan saying how they just raised their house,put 50 g's into it and now there house is destroyed.i blame the insurance companies,not Christie.theres only so much u can do.theres billions worth of home damage in nj alone,i don't know how much Christie got from the gov,but im sure its not that much.my father in laws car was destroyed,geico was out here 3 days later,and in 2 weeks he had a brand new car.i have geico aswell and they never did shyt for me.i got rear ended at a light and they claimed it was my fault lol,for stopping at a red light.and it wasn't a fender bender,it twisted the chassis so the car was shot,they didn't even come out to look at it.

 

Interesting, we rent and we got a small(ish) check from FEMA for rental assistance, it basically covered the difference between what we paid in rent in Rockaway and what we ended up paying for a 3 month sublet in Brooklyn. Our renter's insurance paid I think $200, $100 in expenses for two nights we were under a mandatory evacuation order. Nothing else for 5 feet of water and basically all of our possessions lost.

Oh, and FEMA paid for a few nights in a boutique hotel in Park Slope, a room approximately 5 square feet bigger than the bed in it. They billed FEMA something like $270 a night for that.

 

Pretty much anyone with a verifyable address in the damaged zone qualified for a $10,000 grant.

 

Its pretty amazing what a difference there is between what FEMA actually does for disaster survivors and what the general public thinks they do.

Disaster relief TRULY does not come close to making you whole of even coming close to covering your losses. People who haven't been through a disaster think disaster relief money just rains from the sky into neighborhoods. Sure there is some fraud (mostly in the past, the government really cracked down following Katrina) but like all of you said, if your house got ****ed up, its pretty much on you to deal with the clean-up.

I spent three weeks in Mississippi right after Katrina, because I have a friend who works for the Mississippi Emergency Management, he needed all the help he could get, and was able to pay my expenses to come down. I was on the Gulf coast helping the gov. contractor who was bringing in the thousands of FEMA trailers, making some attempt to verify that the requests were valid and the placement of the trailer was in a sensible location (i.e. wasn't at risk of washing away in the next storm, sewage tank setup onsite, knowing that people would most likely be in the trailer for years to come). Mostly feeling completely helpless, the aftermath was so chaotic, and the support systems were so broken. The strength and resiliency of the people I met - whose lives had just been completely devastated - amazed me. I'm sure Jersey was the same way...real heroic acts without any expectation of recognition or compensation.

I remember thinking it could never be the same for these people. Both of these shots were surprisingly far inland from the Gulf, most likely most even in a mapped floodplain. The bottom shot is a neighborhood that had very nice houses that were just swept away with only the slab remaining...every single bit of the house sticking more than inches above grade was just obliterated by the storm surge.

Sorry if I'm derailing the thread by the way.

 

Michell,

I know what they did because I was in the middle of it.

 

Real wave calculation is based on the scale of Dave Wassels balls.

 

Cantore's in Chicago this morning, not Belmar:

Southend Forecast:
TODAY...NORTHWEST GALES TO 35 KT QUICKLY INCREASING TO STORM
FORCE WINDS TO 50 KT THROUGH THE MORNING. A FEW STORM FORCE GUSTS
TO 55 KT POSSIBLE MID TO LATE MORNING. RAIN AND SHOWERS. WAVES 4
TO 7 FT OCCASIONALLY TO 9 FT EARLY BUILDING TO 18 TO 23 FT
OCCASIONALLY TO 28 FT INTO THE AFTERNOON.

 

+4346978978 hahaha

 

This really highlights the different approaches in NY and NJ. In NJ there was grant money to help people stay in their communities. In the immediate aftermath in NY, there was talk of retreat from the beaches and letting nature take over. It was particularly galling here in Rockaway, after the past 50 or so years of government policy encouraging poor people to move here.

 

Believe me I didnt intend to imply otherwise....sorry that i did. You WERE there so you know all too well. I was saying (clumsily) that a lot of folks who live along the coast that havent been through it, including elected officials, have a complete lack of understanding of how disaster relief and flood insurance work, and the VITAL importance of state and especially local governments in the recovery process. Disaster relief and flood insurance are essentially federal programs, but if you overly rely on the feds, things arent going to work out well.

 

Dude Ryan, there must have been a typo.... that sure sounds like a forecast for the best surf break on the east coast: Belmar, NJ

 

damn that's some heavy carnage right there.thats all I stated at the beginning of this thread and everybody went apeshyt because I said it wasn't that bad,i guess what I meant to say was it wasn't that bad compared to Katrina.i still hear people and the news claiming sandy was our Katrina.sandy was bad but it wasn't no Katrina.we had like a 6ft storm surge,they had like a 30ft storm surge.all I know is if sandy was like Katrina and it came through my neighborhood the way it did in the gulf I would surely be dead.i live about a mile from the water and it was still pretty bad.i just had a newfound respect for water.i don't mind 6ft of snow,but 6 ft of water is a whole new ballgame

 

The people I know who were screwed the hardest by the storm were already in over their heads financially before the storm. Under water on their mortgages and lifestyle even before they went under water if you will. Then they expect government to bail them out and make everything better. Difficult to sympathise with that. Even worse, there is a public housing facility that was totaled by Sandy that I know of. It took about a year to rebuild it. You know not a one of those people used that situation as an opportunity to find better housing and a better life. They ALL came back to the housing project when it was finished and the local politicians held a ceremony praising that they all came back. F-ed up azz backwards world we live in.