NJ to Receive $17 Million in Sandy Relief

More than $17 million in federal Sandy relief grants are on the way to New Jersey, including $10 million for mitigation efforts to guard against future storms. 

The remaining funds will reimburse the state for costs related to debris removal from waterways.  The $17,108,373.22 in federal relief is coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Hazard Mitigation Grant and Public Assistance Programs.

"During the fight for federal Sandy relief, we said that it would not be enough to simply rebuild, but we needed to rebuild stronger and safer," said U.S. Senator Robert Menendez.  "The resources announced today will help the State of New Jersey develop mitigation programs to help residents who were severely flooded by Sandy raise their homes and provide homeowners with back-up energy systems to help during a significant loss of power.  It's efforts like these that will help make New Jersey more resilient against future severe weather events."

"I commend FEMA for its continued attention to the New Jersey recovery and will work to provide our cities and towns with the resources they desperately need," said U.S. Senator Jeff Chiesa.

The funding includes:

• $4 million in federal HMGP funding to the N.J. Hazard Mitigation Grant Program’s Elevation Program, which will provide grants to private citizens for the elevation of residential single-family primary residences in the nine counties most-affected by Superstorm Sandy’s flooding: Atlantic, Bergen, Cape May, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean and Union. The N.J. Department of Community Affairs (DCA) will use the funding to develop HMGP applications for this program to include program requirements/details establishment, application development, database/web development, technical assistance, outreach and education.

• $6 million in federal HMGP Advance Assistance funding to the N.J. Hazard Mitigation Grant Program to develop the Energy Allocation Initiative, which will provide to qualified applicants a variety of energy options and back-up power systems to reduce vulnerability in the event of a significant loss of power. The grants will be made available to qualified applicants within all 21 impacted counties of New Jersey. Funding will be used to develop eligible HMGP application(s), to include but not limited to: evaluation and analysis of potential options for potential critical facilities, application development, application intake, outreach and education, application review, strategy and application ranking.

• $7,108,373.22 in FEMA Public Assistance to the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection for the use of contractors to remove the sand and silt debris impacting state maintained navigable waterways as a result of Superstorm Sandy.