Bloomberg announces Sandy home repair program

  Eyewitness News

NEW YORK -- The city is helping homeowners take a key first step in repairing damage from Superstorm Sandy - finding people to do the work.

Officials are lining up plumbers, electricians and other contractors who will concentrate on fixing storm damage and will be dispatched to the homes of residents who sign up for the city's new NYC Rapid Repairs program, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Friday. People can start signing up Tuesday, and the city hopes some work can be done as soon as next week.

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"The best temporary housing is permanent housing, and that means we want to get as many people back into their homes as we can, and it starts today," Bloomberg said, calling the program "innovative and unprecedented."

The goal is to get as many people as possible back into their homes by the end of the year, he said.

To take advantage of the program, residents need to contact the Federal Emergency Management Agency to get assigned a FEMA number; that can be done by phone at 1-800-621-3362, at DisasterAssistance.gov, or at a disaster assistance center. The bulk of repairs should be eligible for FEMA disaster aid payments, city officials say.

Then homeowners can sign up for NYC Rapid Repairs by going to http://www.NYC.gov, by calling 311 or by going to a city recovery center.

The homes need to be on streets that have electricity, even if the homes themselves do not. Houses that have been inspected and given a green placard, signifying they are structurally sound, will be addressed first because they should be quickest to repair, officials said.

The city will coordinate the repair requests by area, assigning workers to fix multiple houses in the same area for efficiency's sake, so they don't lose time traveling around, officials said.

Meantime, hundreds of thousands of utility customers have been left waiting for their electricity to come back on - and some are losing patience, demanding investigations of utilities they say aren't working fast enough.

An angry Gov. Andrew Cuomo joined the calls for an investigation Thursday, ripping the utilities as unprepared and badly managed.

"It's unacceptable the longer it goes on because the longer it goes on, people's suffering is worse," he said.

Cuomo appears to be all by himself among the New York area's big three politicians. Bloomberg defended the city's power company, Consolidated Edison, and said it has done a good job in recent years. And New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie praised the utilities, saying he expects all of his state to have power back by early Sunday.

The utilities have said they are dealing with damage unprecedented in its scope and are doing the best they can. And there is no denying the magnitude of what they have done: At the peak, more than 8.5 million homes and businesses across 21 states lost power during Sandy.

Con Edison now says the lights are back on in 98 percent of homes that lost power during Sandy and Wednesday's nor'easter.

About 20,000 customers remain powerless in New York City and Westchester County. That's down from a peak of over 1 million affected by the storms.

The figure does not include the 35,000 customers whose homes or businesses were damaged in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

All Staten Island homes that can accept electricity have regained power. About 47 customers in Manhattan do not have electricity. Brooklyn has 4,200 power outages. Queens has 6,000, the Bronx has 890 and Westchester has 8,500.

The utility says nearly all Hurricane Sandy outages will be restored by Sunday.

FEDERAL AID

Impacted residents in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut can apply for federal assistance. Affected residents must register with FEMA by phone or online to access that aid. To register by phone, residents can call 1-800-621-FEMA (3362). The TTY line for people with speech or hearing disabilities is 1-800-462-7585. The line is open from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., seven days per week. To register online, applications may be completed at DisasterAssistance.gov.

If residents have disaster assistance questions, they may call the FEMA Helpline at 1-800-621-3362.

Consumers who believe they have been cheated or scammed by a business, or suspect any other form of consumer abuse, can file a complaint with the State Division of Consumer Affairs by visiting its website or by calling 1-800-242-5846 (toll free within New Jersey ) or 973-504-6200.

FOR EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND OTHER RESOURCES, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

CLICK HERE TO SEE PICTURES OF SANDY'S DAMAGE

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