Brooklyn will get the help it needs to recover from Hurricane Irene. That was the reassuring message Thursday from city and federal disaster relief officials. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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“I predict the federal government will act soon in declaring Brooklyn a disaster zone,” city Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Joseph Bruno said.
FEMA head Craig Fugate said Kings County was omitted from the disaster declaration President Obama signed Wednesday because they didn’t see much damage on their first quick post-storm tour of the borough.
“We didn’t see it,” Fugate said. “It didn’t mean it wasn’t there.”
Obama’s signature on a disaster declaration clears the way for federal aid to start flowing to an affected area – and local pols were alarmed when Brooklyn was the only city borough left off the paperwork.
“Nothing against any one county,” Fugate said.
Both New York and New Jersey have been declared federal disaster areas and Obama will be in the area to inspect storm damage Sunday when he travels to flood-ravaged Paterson, N.J.
Gov. Cuomo estimates the storm, which blew through New York City over the weekend before wreaking more havoc upstate, did $1 billion in damage to the Empire State.
While ConEd has managed to restore power to most New York City residents, some customers in the Spuyten Duyvil section of The Bronx reported they were still in the dark.
Meanwhile, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie went after another powerful Republican, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, for threatening to hold up disaster relief aid.
In an unprecedented move, Cantor – a favorite of the Tea Party – has demanded that any extra aid for storm-tossed states be offset by spending cuts elsewhere in the federal budget. That stance has been denounced by the White House and Democrats.
An infuriated Christie said Congress should act now and “figure out budget cuts later.”
“Our people are suffering now, and they need support now,” Christie told angry homeowners in swamped Lincoln Park, N.J.
“You’re going to turn it into a fiasco like that debt-limit thing where you’re fighting with each other for eight or nine weeks, and you expect the citizens of my state to wait?” Christie added. “They’re not gonna wait, and I’m going to fight to make sure that they don’t.”
