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— Survivors of storms that pounded several U.S. states say the nation’s disaster aid system is broken and want reforms to get money into victims‘ hands faster, with less red tape.
On the 10th anniversary of Superstorm Sandy’s landfall at the Jersey Shore, devastating communities throughout the northeast, survivors will gather Saturday with others who went through hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria and Ida along with victim advocacy groups from New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Louisiana and Puerto Rico.
Robert Lukasiewicz said Sandy sounded like “a hundred freight trains“ as it roared past his Atlantic City, New Jersey home on Oct. 29, 2012.
Contractor fraud set his recovery efforts back and work by a second contractor stalled because of a lack of funds, Lukasiewicz said. After waiting two years for a government aid program, he said he finally found out he needed to have flood insurance first — the price of which had by then soared to unaffordable levels.
“If all these things had been steps instead of missteps, I could have been home years ago,” he said. “You’ve got different systems that are all butting heads and blaming the other side, when the homeowners and families that all of this was designed for are suffering.
