Kirk Moore in USA Today via the Asbury Park Press (New Jersey): Escalating costs from weather disasters like superstorm Sandy and the recent Colorado floods show the need for a new national disaster relief and preparation fund, paid for with new revenue including a levy on atmospheric carbon emissions, according to a new report by the New Jersey-based nonprofit group U.S. Strong.Sandy cost the American economy about $70 billion, with more than half of that in New Jersey, where uninsured losses and unmet needs are estimated to be between $8 billion and $13 billion in permanent losses — business, property and public infrastructure costs that cannot be covered by government aid or private insurance.
Four months in the making, the report collects now familiar stories of homeowners who learned that the flood insurance they had will cover only a fraction of their costs. While housing is a big part of that shortfall, even more of it is local public facilities — roads and town halls that a year later are still not fully repaired. That upper estimate of $13 million in unmet needs could rise in the months to come, state officials told the authors.
Those findings show there needs to be a new, dedicated national funding source to deal with extreme weather disasters, so the nation does not stagger from one emergency to the other like Sandy and Hurricane Katrina, said state Sen. Robert Singer, R-Ocean, who appeared in Point Pleasant Monday this afternoon with organizers of the report.
As the report documents, Singer said the private insurance industry has been of limited help. He recalled the $38,000 that went into fixing his house; it covered the cost of a crane to remove a felled tree, but not the cost of cutting up the tree and removing it....
Search and rescue operations during the recent Colorado floods, shot by Michael Rieger of FEMA
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