Saying Goodbye to the Jersey Shore

"To me, this is nothing more than a Federal money grab" - Brick Township Mayor Stephen Acropolis, as quoted in the January 31, 2013 Star-Ledger

Many of us along the Shore are very concerned about what the new FEMA flood maps mean to the future of our home. To contrast to what happened in New Orleans after Katrina, the Federal government vowed to raise the levees and ensure that a city – built below sea-level – did not flood again.

However, in the aftermath of Sandy, Governor Christie seems to have aligned with the Federal government in a mis-guided attempt to permanently shut the middle-class out of the opportunity to own property on the Jersey Shore. The FEMA maps show an over-reaction to a likely once-in-a-lifetime event, and Christie’s announcement last week about what homeowner’s are going to be forced to do is akin to forcing every property owner in New Orleans to raise their buildings above Katrina flood levels without putting any effort into reinforcing the levee system. In New Jersey, the fix is easier than that, but it seems our Governor and our Federal government are only capable of looking at the dreadful fix of forcing homeowners to pay unreasonable amounts of money to fall into conformance with a hastily drawn, reactionary map that shows that little – if any – thought was put into what conformance with that map means to the residents and property owners of the area.

Please read the the piece today in the Star-Ledger by Paul Mulshine: Shore Mayors Say FEMA's All Over the Map.