Hurricane Sandy

FEMA Releases Sandy Aid Figures

The agency provided a broken down list of programs and aid distributed since Hurricane Sandy.

In the more than four months since Hurricane Sandy arrived in New Jersey and caused massive destruction to its coastal communities, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has distributed more than $4 billion in aid, loans, and flood insurance payouts, the agency announced recently. FEMA provides regular updates relating to funding totals and the number of residents who have availed themselves of the agency's services as it continues to work in New Jersey to provide assistance following Sandy. According to FEMA, National Flood Insurance Program claim payouts total approximately $2.7 billion. That figure will rise as additional claims are made and existing claims are resolved. In all, $586.4 million in loans have been approved by the…

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Hurricane Sandy

Flood Insurance Delay Paints Bleak Picture for Sandy Victims

Many have yet to receive claim checks for flood insurance following Hurricane Sandy.

His wife leaves the room to tend to their youngest. Jim Racanelli talks about being a man, about the responsibility of providing emotional and financial stability for his family. His icy-blue eyes are stern and unblinking, but when he talks his voice wobbles a bit, like the legs of a man shouldering a burden that’s suddenly grown too large to carry. Driven from his home by Hurricane Sandy, Racanelli stands among the ruin. The walls of his Toms River home are stripped up to his waist, electrical lines like exposed nerves. The foundation is cracked, the house and its upside down mortgage shifted. You want to be strong, he says standing in the middle of a warped and rotting floor, but there’s always a limit. If he hasn’t reached it yet he’s …

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Record Storm Threatens Flood Insurance Program

A New York Times report explores the potential impact of the East Coast disaster.

Claims from Hurricane Sandy could further threaten the deeply indebted federal flood insurance program that Ocean City property owners rely on and lead to dramatic changes in the future. A report in the New York Times by Eric Lipton, Felicity Barringer and Mary Williams Walsh suggests Sandy will be the second most-costly storm in history in terms of claims paid. __________ Read "Flood Insurance, Already Fragile, Faces New Stress." __________ "Congress, just this summer, overhauled the flawed program by allowing large increases in premiums paid by vacation home owners and those repeatedly hit by floods," the New York Times reporters write. "But critics say taxpayer money should not be used to bail it out again — essentially subsidizing the …

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Flood Insurance Program Wins Five-Year Extension

The federal program is vital to coastal property owners and to the real estate industry.

President Barack Obama signed a bill on July 6 that extends the National Flood Insurance Program for five years. Property owners in Ocean City and other coastal areas rely on the federally subsidized program to protect their homes — and the success of local real estate industry hinges on the program's existence. Hurricane Katrina in 2006 dealt a $16 billion blow to a federal program that was already operating at a deficit. The continuation of the program has been in doubt since then, and the Senate had passed only a 60-day extension in May.  "The uncertainty over the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has come to an end as Congress passed a five-year extension of the federal flood insurance program on June 29, 2012 as part of a larger…

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