Six months after Hurricane Sandy, significant progress has been made in New York and New Jersey in restoring boardwalks, reopening closed businesses, and rebuilding homes. But for the communities hit hardest by the hurricane, the dire effects of the storm are still being felt, and life has been anything but "normal."
Progress in New Jersey, whose large coastline was rocked by the hurricane, has been substantial, as documented in these photos shared by Governor Chris Christie. Later today, Christie will announce how $1.8 billion in federal grants on storm rebuilding and recovery will be spent. Over half of New Jersey residents still believe it will take years for New Jersey for all the business and homes to return. And the question of whether another hurricane will roll along to wreak the same degree of havoc, or worse, remains.
The new South Ferry Station will have to be completely redone after 14 million gallons of seawater flooded into the station, and the possibility that another storm surge could knock out other stations remains. Officials have even floated the idea of inflatable bladders to keep tunnels free from flooding. A steel wall is being constructed to prevent the tide from destroying the tracks of the A train as it passes Jamaica Bay, but it will only rise seven feet into the air, clearing just two feet the surge of Sandy. The electrical station house for the A train still sits in a flood zone (as do several other central components of New York City's transit infrastructure).
On Coney Island, residents in public housing are still receiving their power through generators and relying on a church group to provide free food, as businesses remain closed in the aftermath of the storm. In the Rockaways, families are struggling to make sure their children are not held back after missing months while living in powerless public houses high-rises. More than 250 families in New York City are still living in hotel rooms paid for by FEMA, as they look for new housing in a crowded (and expensive rental market).
The recovery has been steady, but uneven. Boardwalks and businesses have been the focus, while housing, especially for low-income residents, as well as measures to prevent another devastating storm surge, have lagged behind.
In Breezy Point, the neighborhood on the Rockaway Peninsula that was mostly destroyed by a fire during Sandy, 2400 of the 2800 homes remain unoccupied. Homeowners who had insurance money to rebuild are looking at the massive new cost of insurance in the flood zone, and wondering whether it's worth it to move back to Breezy Point at all. New building codes also make the cost of rebuilding unrealistic for most families, who remain scattered across the area, staying with families or living in hotel rooms.
"It’s eerie here, like a ghost town, especially at night with 2,400 families gone. I don’t see the politicians anymore, either,” John Nies, a contractor working on homes in Breezy Point, told the Daily News.
