Sandy survivors set up a small camp Tuesday morning in the World War II Memorial Park across West State Street from the Statehouse and will remain until Friday, hoping to draw attention to the problems that persist three years after the storm. They say they’ll sit or stand outdoors the rest of the week.
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In this October 22, 2015 photo, Krista Sperber examines the living room of her newly rebuilt home in Belmar, N.J., shortly before the third anniversary of Superstorm Sandy.
Sperber, who just got the electricity turned on in her house last Thursday, said she never imagined her family would be out of their home for three years. “It’s New Jersey. It’s a very forward-thinking state that did a piss-poor job, that’s all I can tell you”, Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said at a news conference in front of a Sandy memorial wall erected for the four-day demonstration.
“He’s completely forgotten about us”, said Doug Quinn, whose house in Toms River remains unlivable, in an interview with The Associated Press. “We feel absolutely abandoned by Chris Christie”.
Christie’s office says he’s committed to seeing the recovery through.
A guy yelled, “Shut up and go home”, Mangino recalled. “I said, ‘Don’t you get it?” $659 million has been distributed to homeowners, while roughly $650 million is still in the pipeline.
The protesters gathered outside the State House have, for the most part, received a few amount of financial assistance. But they told the AP that “red tape, contractor delays, insurance disputes, and more have kept them from fully rebuilding”.
Christie spokesman Brian Murray said New Jersey had made “tremendous progress” since Sandy.
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Joe Mangino a founder member of the NJ Organizing Project said thousands of families are still not home for good. We want to assure families affected by the storm that our singular focus at DCA is to get them back into their homes, and that we will work in good faith with any homeowner who is committed to the rebuilding of their storm-damaged home.
