Cuomo: Sandy cost NY, NYC $32B in damage and loss

In this photo from Oct. 30, Robert Con­nolly, left, embraces his wife, Laura, as their son Kyle leans over, at right, as they sur­vey the remains of the home owned by Laura’s par­ents that burned to the ground in the Breezy Point sec­tion of New York, fol­low­ing Super­storm Sandy. (Asso­ci­ated Press file | Mark Lennihan)

MICHAEL GORMLEY

Asso­ci­ated Press

ALBANY, N.Y. — Top polit­i­cal lead­ers in New York put their heads together Mon­day on big requests for fed­eral dis­as­ter aid as Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that Super­storm Sandy ran up a bill of $32 bil­lion in the state and the nation’s largest city.

The cost is for repairs and restora­tion and does not include an addi­tional account­ing of over $9 bil­lion to head off dam­age in the next dis­as­trous storm, includ­ing steps to pro­tect the power grid and cell­phone network.

“It’s com­mon sense; it’s intel­li­gent,” Cuomo said. “Why don’t you spend some money now to save money in the future? And that’s what pre­ven­tion and mit­i­ga­tion is.”

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had announced ear­lier in the day that Sandy caused $19 bil­lion in losses in New York City — part of the $32 bil­lion esti­mate Cuomo used.

New York tax­pay­ers, Cuomo said, can’t foot the bill.

“It would inca­pac­i­tate the state. … Tax increases are always a last, last, last resort.”

Cuomo met with New York’s con­gres­sional del­e­ga­tion to dis­cuss the new fig­ures and present “less than a wish list.” The del­e­ga­tion, Cuomo and Bloomberg will now draw up a request for fed­eral dis­as­ter aid.

States typ­i­cally get 75 per­cent reim­burse­ment for the cost of gov­ern­ments to restore mass tran­sit and other ser­vices after a disaster.

The most basic recov­ery costs for roads, water sys­tems, schools, parks, indi­vid­ual assis­tance and more total $15 bil­lion in New York City; $7 bil­lion for state agen­cies; $6.6 bil­lion in Nas­sau County and $1.7 bil­lion in Suf­folk County, both on sub­ur­ban Long Island; and $527 mil­lion in Westch­ester County and $143 mil­lion in Rock­land County, both north of New York City, accord­ing to a state doc­u­ment used in the pri­vate brief­ing of the del­e­ga­tion and obtained by The Asso­ci­ated Press.

Hard times were already fac­ing the state and city gov­ern­ments that were star­ing at deficits of more than $1 bil­lion before Sandy hit in late Octo­ber. State tax receipts have also missed pro­jec­tions, show­ing a con­tin­ued slow recov­ery from a reces­sion that could hit tax­pay­ers in the gov­ern­ments’ bud­gets this spring. And there’s the loom­ing fis­cal cliff, the com­bi­na­tion of expir­ing fed­eral tax cuts and major spend­ing cuts that could rat­tle the economy.

“Make no mis­take, this will not be an easy task, par­tic­u­larly given the impend­ing fis­cal cliff, and a Con­gress that has been much less friendly to dis­as­ter relief than in the past,” Schumer said. “We will work with the (Obama) admin­is­tra­tion on sup­ple­men­tal leg­is­la­tion, to be intro­duced in the upcom­ing Decem­ber ses­sion of Con­gress, that will set us on the road to meet­ing New York’s needs. This will be an effort that lasts not weeks, but many months, and we will not rest until the fed­eral response meets New York’s deep and exten­sive needs.”

Rep. Peter King, a Long Island Repub­li­can who, like Schumer, is a pow­er­ful mem­ber of his cham­ber, said he is seek­ing coop­er­a­tion from House lead­ers to find enough dis­as­ter aid.

“It really is sur­vival,” King said. “This is an emer­gency. This should be sep­a­rate of all the debate about the fis­cal cliff and every­thing else.”

The Cuomo admin­is­tra­tion has gained the pub­lic sup­port of Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and FEMA in New York’s pro­posal for full reim­burse­ment for storm dam­age, but state offi­cials have pri­vately wor­ried about how much the state can get now.

In the city, Bloomberg is ask­ing fed­eral law­mak­ers to put up nearly $10 bil­lion to reim­burse gov­ern­ment agen­cies and pri­vate busi­nesses. That would be addi­tional fund­ing on an expe­dited basis over the $5.4 bil­lion in stan­dard dis­as­ter aid that the city projects it will receive from the Fed­eral Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency.

That FEMA money and pri­vate insur­ance won’t cover all the pub­lic and pri­vate expenses from the storm, which included dam­aged streets and restau­rants closed because of flood­ing, Bloomberg said.

“While the impact of the storm will be felt for some time and the chal­lenges are great, I am con­fi­dent that the city will rebound and emerge stronger than ever,” Bloomberg wrote to the con­gres­sional delegation.

Rein­sur­ance com­pany Swiss Re showed the extent of pri­vate sec­tor pain. It esti­mates that claims stem­ming from Sandy will cost the com­pany about $900 mil­lion and that total losses from insured dam­age will be between $20 bil­lion and $25 billion.

Rein­sur­ance firms pro­vide cov­er­age to insur­ance com­pa­nies for great losses stem­ming from events like nat­ural disasters.

Other states are seek­ing fed­eral assis­tance, too. FEMA has already paid out nearly $250 mil­lion in New Jer­sey, where Gov. Chris Christie says the pre­lim­i­nary dam­age esti­mate is $29.4 bil­lion and could rise.

Posted by AP News on Nov 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.