Storm sufferers in the US: We need quicker funding and fewer red tape

Storm survivors in numerous U.S. states claim the country’s disaster relief system is dysfunctional and call for improvements to speed up and streamline the distribution of funds to victims.

On Saturday, survivors of Superstorm Sandy will come together with those who were affected by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, and Ida, as well as victim advocacy organizations from New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and Puerto Rico. Superstorm Sandy struck the Jersey Shore ten years ago, devastating communities throughout the northeast.

On October 29, 2012, when Sandy rushed by Robert Lukasiewicz’s residence in Atlantic City, New Jersey, he said that it sounded like “a hundred freight trains.”

The work of a second contractor came to a halt due to a shortage of cash, and contractor fraud put down his recovery attempts, according to Lukasiewicz. He said that after waiting for two years for a government help program, he eventually learned that in order to get assistance, he first required flood insurance, the cost of which had by that point increased to exorbitant levels.

I could have been home years ago if all these things had been steps rather than mistakes, he said. When the homeowners and families for whom all of this was intended are suffering, several systems are fighting and blaming one another.

Five changes, according to the survivors and their supporters, are required to prevent future storm victims from encountering the same kind of hold-ups, red tape, and financial abyss that they did: getting money into people’s hands more quickly, making sure disaster recovery systems are applied fairly, ensuring that flood insurance works for storm victims rather than against them, incorporating future storm resiliency into disaster recovery efforts, and making sure that disaster recovery is systematic rather than piecemeal.

The recommendations call for a single point of application for the various local, state, and federal assistance programs, a smaller cap on annual flood insurance premium rate increases, direct payments and health insurance for a time after the storm for storm victims, reorganizing loan repayment or aid overpayment “clawbacks” to take into account a storm survivor’s ability to pay, and paying 100% of mitigation costs up front for low-income storm victims.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency area that includes New Jersey, according to Michael Moriarty, is continually working to improve its ability to respond to storm victims.

To bring relief to individuals when their home was flooded has long been considered the Holy Grail, he added. “Since that money belongs to the taxpayers, we must exercise caution to ensure that it is utilized wisely and not merely wasted. We’re looking for a system that enables speedier alleviation.

The notion of a single application site for hurricane help, he said, is a good one, but he warned that federal privacy regulations prevent sharing information with state and local agencies unless signed releases are obtained first, which may take weeks.

Federal budget watchdogs spent eight months to assess a post-Ida assistance program that was supposed to be fast-tracked and provide applicants an answer on approval within two weeks, according to Moritarty.

Although it fell short of the first month’s objective, he noted that it was still inside the first year. That will improve over time, in my opinion.

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