Because climate change means melting ice caps, higher seas and more violent storms.

You all need to do some research on your own before you make such patently ridiculous remarks. Yes, the climate is changing; it always has and it always will. In fact, however, worldwide temperatures have been dropping since 1998, the polar ice caps are expanding, and sea level is not rising. If you rely on the mainstream media for your information, all you will get is the lies they have been spoon-feeding all of us for decades as part of their agenda. Get your information from the Internet and start getting the facts, not the lies they are feeding you so they can raise taxes to fight a problem that does not exist and could not be prevented even if it did exist.

Okay, so they should leave their houses at the same level they are now and then expect FEMA and/or their insurance company to pay out the next time the fit hits the shan?
Or should they just rebuild in place and then have FEMA and/or insurance company deny their next claim because they didn't follow recommended standards?

George
50 k to you is no big deal right?

If you have flood insurance ,they will help pay to raise the home. .

50K to raise your house? Not in this world. And many homes cannot be raised. So what is that? 100 to demolish and remove then 300 to rebuild?

George

I thought you were super rich?

No disaster aid for NJ, says the party of NO in Congress. Christie should publicly denounce all the Tea Partiers, Grover Norquist, Boner & Co.

Martin where is the money coming from? Do you know we owe 17 trillion in debt? Didn't visa cancel our credit card?

Actually Florida is constantly upgrading its building code especially zones. I can't speak for Louisiana, but I'm sure they are too.

WTF are you talking about?

Bla, Bla, Bla, The administration is Democrat, and has been for awhile. Try to remember where the buck stops.
It's called Leadership !

The problem with the 60 billion, it's not all for the Sandy relief effort, in the bill is the repairing of existing forts, Gitmo, and perks for other states thrown in there. A third of the money requested has nothing to do with the damage from the hurricane. Look it up

Mr Bressman, Appropriation bills are rarely, if ever, only for one item. You can be sure that when they wrote an emergency appropriation bill after Katrina hit New Orleans there was some money in there to rebuild a bridge in California and to protect some Pinelands Farting Frog here in NJ

I'm with you on this.

Sal care to translate that for us .....

I'm surprised towns don't help pay for this ...Imagine all waterfront homes being donated to the state for parks ..Homeowner gets the tax write off...towns lose the property tax and must pass loss on to the rest of the town .....

Sal - Perhaps if we promise to add solar panels to the devastated properties from a company which coincidentally happens to contribute heavily to the Democrat party we may get the federal aid necessary to rebuild. Just an observation on how we could have half a billion dollars available this very minute.

FEMAs primary charge is to help individual citizens. Even if someone has flood and homeowner's insurance, it doesn't mean that all or even most expenses are paid. That's the purpose of government - to help citizens in need.

gjc,
The purpose of government - to help citizens in need?
Find that in the Constitution.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'
Ronald Reagan

I agree with you Rick ! The problem with people today is that they feel "government" (read that as "we the taxpayers") are supposed to take care of them from cradle to grave. I got flooded.. I bought flood insurance and paid the premium for many years.. that's called "being responsible for yourself"... not blaming someone else !!

Some of my neighbors needed that fema money but they aren't living very well. Some are in Section 8 housing or in flea bag motels that often throw them out if higher paying customers want a room. The couple I have in mind has absolutely nothing and the least we can hope for is they stay healthy, continue to work, and find the gumption to start all over. And remember those folks are still paying their mortgages and slightly reduced taxes and it is far from easy and will not last all that long

Ken,
In the 30 years that we have lived in Brick, not once had we flooded. Unbelievable as it may seem, we are not close to the ocean/canal/bay. Our mortgage company did not require/advise us to have flood insurance for the past 30 years. The storm SURGE caused a small creek that I did not even know was close to raise the water table and with nowhere else to flowed back through the water pipes into the sewers and flood the street and my front yard, driveway and side yard. We had 5 inches of salt water in garage and enclosed porch, it ruined our central air unit and lost one car as the undercarriage holds all the safety sensors (i.e.airbags, anti-lock brakes).
Will we get flood insurance now...definitely! However, the cost on an annual policy could cost $24,000 to $31,000, can you afford that in today's economy. My home is a ranch on a slab and not a great candidate to raise or put on pilings. If the shoe was on the other foot, I wonder how you would feel. I say, Shame on you, for not understanding others plights.

Adam, I would like to point out that the flood water didn't back up through the sewers. It backed up through storm drains, which in Ocean County are separate from the sewer lines.
If it had backed up through sewer lines, you would have been cleaning a lot more than brackish salt water out of your garage.

"Ask not what I can do for my country but my country can do for me" ............

Maybe you ought to get out of your car & actually talk with the people you are typecasting. In our neighborhood several of us rented dumpsters for over six weeks and they were for all to use. Neighbors have helped neighbors in so many ways and with so much of their dignity having been tossed by Sandy's wind, they still want to come back and many of them will & are doing much of the physical labor themselves.

The garbage situation in our area was dictated to us by our town fathers. We have had to drag some unbelievably heavy, messy and dirty things to a mythical curb line because the large trucks used often were snow plows that weren't the best vehicles for the job. And some of the garbage even came to us from other neighborhoods and areas and other than four hours of work volunteered by a nearby community group, we have been out there picking up the stuff. I purchased a new wagon and large can and tongs and garbage bags so that I could become more efficient. And I haven't asked for or received a penny from anywhere or anyone. It's my job.

We are all part of a community & if one of us is down or in pain, others try to step up to the plate. As to washing things off, you have no idea of the raw hands people have now. Some things were covered with spots of mold & they present a hazard not just to the homeowner but to the larger community because mold spores fly through the air.

Try talking with people instead of judging them from your nice warm car.

That is not true, I spent hours throughout the nights taking my things and after educating myself on how to salvage my things I tried as hard as I could. Don't lump all of us together, I kep being told it was "Black Water" needs to go, but I kept saying ever hear of BLEACH and other products, which I used until my hands were raw, so I was able to save what could be saved, and now I find out that my house needs to be raised, NEVER in OC history did my home ever take water, but now it is in the V zone, one pen swipe by Christie and our retirement is over. 30 years of paying for flood insurance, even when not deemed necessary by the bank and Mr. Christie with no due diligence has ruined more lives then the storm.

A friend who lives in Nantucket and has been through flooding several times suggested good old 40 Mule Team Borax. It will absorb water out of wooden and fabric furniture and then can be used to clean these items.

The governor didn't create the new flood maps and the new V zones. Since your house did take water this time, don't you think it would be prudent to follow the FEMA advice and raise your house out of harm's way?
Or do you think that if it happens again next year or ten years from now, we the taxpayers should foot the bill to repair your house again?

WRONG. Water destroyed many things so that they no longer can be used. But the health hazard attached to mold is huge and it takes expensive liquids to properly attempt to remove it. Try $36 a gallon and look at the size of the problem and understand no one but no one came to help.

foggyworld,
I didn't say that something like 40 Mule Team would clean everything.
But if you go to whatever store to get something to clean furnature or to remove mold do you think they are going to recommend 40 Mule Team and/or bleach or something that sells for $36 a gallon?

Edie Pepe,
I keep hearing this term "Black Water" but no one seems to define it. I know Blackwater is/was a private military contractor that worked in Iraq and other areas. Other than that, I would think black water would be found in murky, back water bayous in Lousiana.

Brick living - I'd prefer to insist that Congress spend not one dime more than they take in. If you think gas companies are the cause of our deficit, you really need to go back to school.

Do you realize that the taxes you pay 'year round' are local taxes? They pay for the police and fire protection, garbage collection, road maintanence afforded to your house.
FEMA is not a 'free' insurance policy. It is there to help people who have lost their primary residence.

So, you think FEMA should give your party house the same priority that people who lost their primary residence?

And FEMA and SBA are two separate entities of the Federal Government. The fact that you even mentioned SBA implies that you also use this as a rental property. Year round residences should get priority.

@Rick, a primary residence can get a SBC loan. FEMA is a federal agency with many functions and programs. I'm not saying that I believe that all these programs are good or equitable. They are what they are. What I do believe is that the tri-stae area is in dire need of federal aid, and deservedly so. The double edged sword that the politicians in the house fail to recognize as they slack, is that the economy in the most densely populated region of the country being atrophied is an economic nightmare for the country given the fedral revenue reduction. I will defer my humanitarian dissertation for a subsequent discussion .

Proof read? Mike, that's V zone, that are high hazard impacted by ocean waves... honest mistake for you too...

GOSH, Thanks for sharing

As I understand it, if you have to raise a house the height restriction would be measured from the base of the first floor, not from ground level.

I believe it is 37' and there has been some quiet talk about raising that a bit but it's not on the top of the pops list yet.

Can this guy be more out of touch with what is important to us right now? This is like a goof from SNL. He brags about opening a facility that continues to hemorrhage tax dollars, brags that he is super pet friendly, and then says we had a bad storm but the federal government is here to help and you can call FEMA or your insurance company for assistance.
News flash. Most voters have not found FEMA or their insurance companies very helpful. Most are finding FEMA and insurance the source of their financial ruin. But that's OK. You're good to puppies and kittens.

Proud you voted for the round guy Bi Polar? you betcha

They should have used google maps. But that doesn't cost anything.

www.StopFemaNow.com
www.Facebook.com/StopFemaNow

Your math is just a bit off. $2500 X 1550 is over $3.8 million a year.
Of course your logic can also apply to auto insurance.

@ re-tired, Fema changed from using NGVD to NAVD in 2006:
NGVD 29 stands for National Geode
tic Vertical Datum of 1929.
It is a system that has been us
ed by surveyors and engineers for
most of the 20
th
Century. It has been th
e basis for relating ground
and flood elevations, but it has been replaced by the more-
accurate North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88).

training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/.../440%20BMM%20NGVD-NAVD.pdf