They want to recover something from the recovery program.
Mayor DeBlasio is set to sign a new bill that would convene a group of experts and locals to look at the city’s Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts and work out what it could have done better to help victims rebuild in the five years since the storm. The analysis is crucial because it will improve future recovery efforts by ensuring the same mistakes are not repeated, said Councilman Mark Treyger (D–Coney Island), who introduced the legislation.
“For many across the city, the memories of Sandy’s devastation are still fresh in our minds. Our recovery has not been without its setbacks, but those challenges have afforded us the opportunity to gain valuable insight on what went right and what we can do better,” said Treyger, who chairs the Council’s Committee on Resiliency and Recovery. “This legislation will help create a comprehensive, holistic understanding of our recovery process so we can develop a blueprint to guide us and our fellow Americans in the much-needed effort to become more resilient and better prepared to face natural disasters.”
The 15 members of the voluntary panel — the Hurricane Sandy Recovery Task Force — will work together to create a report that analyzes the city’s response to the 2012 storm, from which hundreds of families are still recovering and many have not yet been able to move back into their homes.
In particular, Treyger wants the task force to examine how the city conducted its outreach to homeowners about the federally funded, city-run recovery program Build it Back — which was plagued with its own financial problems, bureaucratic red tape, and mismanagement scandals from the get-go — how it handled language barriers, and how it could have better involved helpful do-gooder organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and the New Orleans-based St. Bernard Project that was established in the wake of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina to speed rebuilding, he said.
“Why was the structure so prohibitive to not allow them to take on more cases to help rebuild faster and probably cheaper?” said Treyger. “And how do we then change that structure moving forward?”
Build it Back’s head honcho is fully on board with the task force, conceding that improvements in the program are necessary for building resilient neighborhoods.
“We’re fully in support of that bill,” said Amy Peterson. “The mayor came out and said we want to see what’s been done and how to do this better.”
And that started with shifting the impetus of recovery away from deadlines and instead towards getting everyone safely back into their homes — it was exactly one year ago when the Mayor admitted he had failed to make his own-self imposed deadline to raise all homes by year’s end, said Peterson.
“Really it’s about every home and getting them done,” she said. “We have finished 87 percent of every homeowner that’s in the program and we’re continuing to finish homes on a daily basis.”
Hizzoner will tap eight people to join the force, and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (D–Manhattan) will select another seven — some of whom would be drawn from the community, local resiliency and recovery organizations, and front-line victims of the storm, according to Treyger.
The legislation passed unanimously in the Council on Oct. 18 and is awaiting DeBlasio’s signature. Once enacted, the task force has 120 days to take shape and then one year to complete the analysis and report back, said Treyger.
