On today's show: 

New Yorkers are voting on Proposition 1, which would add some new protections to the state constitution. Liz Krueger, New York State senator (D, WF - 28th, Manhattan's East Side ), chair of the finance committee (and one of the key legislators behind Prop 1), explains the thinking behind the measure, then, Brigid Bergin, WNYC's senior political correspondent, talks about what it would do, and how the arguments for and against it have broken down along partisan lines.

Fred Kaplan, Slate's War Stories columnist and the author of many nonfiction books and his latest, a novel, A Capital Calamity (MIniver Press, 2024), talks about the latest news on global conflicts, plus his new novel.

Benji Jones, an environmental correspondent at Vox covering biodiversity and climate change, reports from Colombia and COP16, the UN conference with the goal of preserving biodiversity, on progress, funding and the relationship to climate change.

Twelve years later, and as massive storms remain a threat to coastal communities and beyond, listeners reflect on the experience of Superstorm Sandy, what they learned and what has changed.

Transcripts are posted to each segment as they become available.

In September, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published a report detailing its $52 billion proposal to protect New York City with the largest system of waterfront barriers in the region — and one of the largest infrastructure projects in the city’s history. The tentatively selected plan, named Alternative 3B, is part of the NY & NJ Harbor & Tributaries Focus Area Feasibility Study, or HATS, and it proposes building 12 enormous storm surge gates in New York and New Jersey waterways. It would also construct more than 41 miles of coastal barriers along the city’s shoreline, cutting through neighborhoods, parks and beaches.

Environmental groups have responded with alarm, and several are now publicly stating their opposition to the proposal. In a statement released on Thursday, 10 organizations that work with regional waterways came out in opposition to the Army Corps' proposal. The groups, which are members of a collective called the NYC and NJ Urban Tributaries Working Group, are the stewards of several creeks and canals where the Army Corps has proposed to build storm surge and tidal gates.

The collective includes the Bronx River Alliance, Coney Island Beautification Project, Gowanus Canal Conservancy, Guardians of Flushing Bay, Hackensack Riverkeeper, Hutchinson River Restoration Project, Newtown Creek Alliance, Save the Sound, Coalition for Wetlands and Woodlands, and NY/NJ Baykeeper.

WNYC host Sean Carlson chatted with environmental photojournalist Nathan Kensinger about why this collective is speaking out. Click "listen" in the player to hear their conversation, and visit Gothamist for more details.

That was only the start of his long journey through the Staten Island buyout program. New York officials created this initiative for the sake of managed retreat, which is when the government steps in and purchases private property for the purpose of getting residents out of a flood-prone area.

The program also set off broader discussions about whether it’s sustainable to keep living in coastal New York and New Jersey — or if nature is evicting us, how does the government support those who want to relocate?

Click "listen" in the player to hear a feature story, and visit Gothamist for more details.

On a top shelf, untouched by the floodwaters from the 9-foot-high storm surge, Paul Balukas reached his hand into the back of a closet and found an old peanut tin — full of about 20 round, gray metal Super 16 mm film canisters — heavy with the acrid scent of nitrate.

They belonged to homeowner and widow Doris Neimeth, who is now 85. She was in Florida with her husband Albert when Sandy hit and she got the news that her home, which was passed down through Albert's mother, was lying on its side with most of its furniture and appliances washed away.

“When the ocean met the bay, it knocked my house off its foundation,” Neimeth said. Her home was already built up on cinder blocks about 6 feet off the ground. “When we went to see it, it was on an angle, a tilt, and the deck was gone.”

She told Balukas to take whatever he could salvage from the remains of her house for Christ Community Church, where he was president for many years.

From what seemed destined for the dumpster came the seeds of the Breezy Point Historical Society, an organization with a mission to make the tight-knit Queens community’s memories more resilient to future storms by preserving them.

Ten years after the storm, the 500-acre beach cooperative of mostly city workers continues to provide a daily stream of local artifacts for consideration in the society’s collection — as well as financial support since the organization became officially chartered in 2015. The organization is run by 18 dedicated volunteers, mostly current and former board members, who are supported by the group’s 150 members.

The society offers a blueprint for preserving local memories for countless coastal neighborhoods due to be hit by intensifying storms as climate change worsens.

Click "listen" in the player to hear a feature about the historical society, and visit Gothamist for more details.

Then — she picks up her mail and heads back to the apartment she actually lives in — about a mile away. Zappia is among the 1,200 families in the Garden State who have not been able to afford to move back to homes damaged by Sandy; the cost of repairs is overwhelming.

“I’m about $75,000 short to complete my project,” said the 62-year-old mother who raised two boys in the home, and cared for her mother there through 12 years of Alzheimer’s. 

She shared her story following a press conference in Union Beach — another Jersey Shore community with families still struggling to move back home after the storm. At Union Beach Fire Company No. 1, Gov. Phil Murphy, flanked by Rep. Frank Pallone, Sen. Bob Menendez and Sen. Cory Booker, all fellow Democrats — used the 6th anniversary of Sandy to announce a proposal to offer zero-interest loans for homeowners to finish rebuilding.

Murphy said more than 300 families in Union Beach have returned home, but 56 have not, saying that it’s “56 too many.”

His proposal calls for tapping $50 million in unused money from the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development earmarked for the state after the 2012 hurricane; the loans would go up $150,000. Recipients, would, however, have to remain in the rebuilt home for 15 years.

Murphy said he would restructure the existing RREM program (Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation, and Mitigation) and the Low-to-Moderate Income (LMI) Homeowners Rebuilding Program. Both are housing recovery programs for homeowners affected by Sandy.

Public hearings would have to be held before such a program could move forward, he said.

Murphy also said the state will work with homeowners who received excess grant money after Sandy, and now owe the state -to pay back the money, or in the case of hardship, have the debt forgiven. That could include cases where an original homeowner has died and the family is left with the debt, or where a family is facing foreclosure. He said the state has put a freeze on requests for repayment.

Zappia commended the proposal but doubted she would take advantage of it. At 62, she can’t promise she’ll be able to stay in her house 15 more years, and she wouldn’t want to pass down a home to her kids with a lien on it.

"It's going to take a lot of work," Nickel said in 2016. "I hope I'm ready for it, I hope God gives me the strength."

Now, the home is elevated above the expected flood level, but the interior work is still not done. 

"It's been torturous," Nickel said, when reached by phone recently. "That's how I can explain it, if I could use one word, that's what it was."

Her contractor has told her, "just one more month"—every month since April. She expects she'll have spent $600,000 by the time the house is finished with the renovations. The city's onerous permitting process has taken its toll on her and just this month she put the property on the market, for $730,000.

The auction was part of the state's Buyout and Acquisition program. Altogether, the state bought 108 properties on Staten Island, 229 in Nassau County, 219 Suffolk County.

Congress appropriated $209,757,609 for the program, which was allocated by HUD through a Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery grant. In the end the state recovered $83,647,502 from selling the properties at auction. Those funds were supposed to be invested back into other resilience-building activities by the Governor's Office of Storm Recovery.

On Wiman Avenue, where Nickel's property is located, the state bought nine homes for a total of $3.5 million, and then sold at auction for $1.9 million. (The state made favorable offers in order to entice the former homeowners to sell and move to higher ground.) Currently, six of the properties have permits for construction. The others have until 2019 to begin construction or the state will take the property back.

Many other homes on the block remain under construction. Suzanne O'Conner bought a home a year before Sandy. Rather than selling her Sandy-damaged home, she decided to knock it down and build anew, on pillars, above the flood level. 

"Hindsight [is] 20/20. I wish I would've sold and left," she said recently by phone. She's been renting for the past six years. 

But O'Conner said there may be an upside to not leaving. As her neighborhood is being rebuilt, it's getting more valuable.

"All the builders have purchased properties on that block and knocked them down and built mega-mansions," she said. "I'm sure my house will be worth a lot more than it was before."

But not everyone sees an upside. Cosima Defranco, 77, has lived on this block for over 50 years. Her single-story brick bungalow was severely damaged by Sandy. She even signed up for the acquisition program, but when the state offered her $345,000, she backed out.

"They say you sell your house, that's the money we give to you, you buy another one. I keep saying you find it for me," she said.

She did get some money from Federal Emergency Management Agency to fix the flood damage, but said it's not enough to raise the home. So, for now, when heavy rain is expected, she goes to stay with one of her children, knowing full well that if another storm like Sandy hit, her home would be ruined.

Kusama first presented her “Garden” outside of the Venice Biennale in 1966 as an uninvited participant at the art fair (back then, the globes were made of plastic). Standing among the reflective spheres, barefoot and in a gold kimono, she sold them for $2 a piece with signs that said, “Your Narcissism for Sale.”

“I think her main thrust is that she wanted to talk about the art world and the fact that the art world was so enchanted with itself,” said Lynn Zelevansky, a freelance curator, and art historian. “The fact that most human beings on this planet could not afford the art that was being shown at the Venice Biennale and that’s why she sold the balls for $2 each.”

Italian authorities eventually shut her down, but the installation has continued with shows in places such as Central Park (2004), the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris (2010) and recently at the Glass House in Connecticut (2016).

Now, it’s part of “Rockaway!” a free public art show created in 2014 led by Klaus Biesenbach, director of MoMA PS1, and the artist Patti Smith, with the support of the Rockaway Artists Alliance, Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy, National Park Service, and Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Biesenbach and Smith have homes in the Rockaways and saw first-hand the damage to the area from Sandy in 2012 (More recently, there’s been even more erosion, leading to the closure of popular beaches).  Through the art series, they, along with the other participating organizations hope to bring attention to the need to rebuild and reinforce the region.

“I think it’s very important to not to think about ‘Rockaway!’ as a festival for art's sake,” said Biesenbach at the unveiling of Kusama’s work.  “It really has a different meaning and I think it’s very important for us that it’s raising awareness for this very vulnerable area here.”

An artist like Kusama who draws large crowds (and lots of Instagram attention) might bring the kind of attention the “Rockaways!” is hoping for (as long as the visitors aren’t too narcissistic).

Check out Gothamist for more pictures and here for directions. 

"Narcissus Garden" is open Friday through Sunday, 12-6 pm at Gateway National Recreation Area in Fort Tilden through September 3, 2018.

Such barriers gained prominence in the Netherlands, where a series of structures called the Delta Works protects the southwestern part of the country. But they're also in use in London; St. Petersburg, Russia; Providence, R.I.; and Stamford, Conn. The gates are kept open most of the time to permit ships to pass and water to circulate, but they swing closed when a hurricane approaches. (The gates in Stamford swing upward off the sea floor.)

The proposal will undoubtedly be controversial, given that such a barrier could cost $20 billion or more, and will take years to plan and build. Environmentalists meanwhile fear that the barriers, even with movable gates, would seriously impede the flow of sea life and water. (Riverkeeper says the proposal "threaten[s] the very life of the Hudson River.") But others argue that barriers are a more secure and centralized way of protecting the metropolitan region than the piecemeal approach undertaken so far.

In a series of public information sessions this week, the Army Corps is presenting five options for protecting the area's waterfront, four of which involve storm surge barriers:

a five-mile long barrier at the southernmost border of the lower bay, between Sandy Hook, N.J., and Breezy Point in the Rockaways; a smaller barrier between Staten Island and Brooklyn, across the channel that the Verrazzano-Narrows bridge spans, accompanied by gates across the mouth to Jamaica Bay and Arthur Kill; a series of berms and sea walls along low-lying portions of the New Jersey and New York City waterfront, along with small gates across some waterways; and an option that would only use berms and sea walls.

 The information sessions will be held:

Mon., July 9th, 3-5 p.m., Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers St.; Mon., July 9th, 6-8 p.m., Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers St.; Tues., July 10th, 3-5 p.m., Rutgers University-Newark Campus, 350 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard; Tues., July 10th, 6-8 p.m. Rutgers University-Newark Campus, 350 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard; Wed., July 11th, 6-8 p.m., Hudson Valley Community Center, 110 S. Grand Ave., Poughkeepsie.

For more information on the sessions, see the Army Corps announcement. 

The burial site on the island's north shore has faced persistent erosion issues after it was damaged during Sandy in 2015. While only family members are allowed to visit burial sites, photographs taken from offshore earlier this month showed human bones exposed to the elements.

"Having skeletal remains washing into the Long Island Sound is not a decent burial," said Melinda Hunt, the director of the nonprofit Hart Island Project. "It's not even a burial."

Hunt has butted heads with the city's Department of Correction over Hart Island's management for years. She says that the northern site, known as "Bone Beach," is particularly vulnerable to erosion from strong storms.

"There have been at least four nor'easters this year as well, and it's just a poorly-managed landscape," said Hunt.

In a statement, the Department of Correction said officials have visited the site and will rebury any exposed remains. The agency said it will expedite work to prevent more shoreline erosion.

Hart Island has served as New York City's public cemetery since 1868. About 1 million people are buried there.

Jackie Hall, 45, lives near the Bedford Ave. stop, and studied a subway map depicting which stations will be closed. An MTA employee advised her if she wants to avoid crowds, but have a longer ride, she should take the L into Brooklyn and transfer to the M train. A faster but potentially more crowded route would be to take the G to Court Square and switch to the 7 train. She also questioned how efficient the bus and ferry options will be.

"I keep thinking I'm going to lose my job," Hall said. "After three times you're late they start writing warnings."

In addition to repairing the tunnels damaged by Sandy in 2012, the MTA will also be upgrading several stations, building new elevators, turnstiles and entrances. This includes adding four new stairways at the Bedford Avenue stop. That plan has Wlliamsburg native Kathy, who declined to give her last name, puzzled and unimpressed.

"What possessed the MTA to put these on Bedford Avenue?" she asked an MTA representative at the open house.

"Right now the existing stairs, we really need more capacity to get down to the station," the employee, who declined to give her name, said.

"I think it's in an awfully awkward spot," Kathy said.

There will be three more open houses in the coming weeks. 

Our story focused on the Midland Beach neighborhood of Staten Island — an area where 11 of the 44 deaths caused by the storm took place.

In this community, people trust their neighbors, their family and friends. Still, there weren’t any local networks when Sandy hit to effectively spread the word about evacuation and ensure that everyone had a way to reach safety.

Karen Jackson, a coordinator for the Staten Island Long Term Recovery Organization recognized the need to build one and began organizing residents. WNYC, in partnership with IDEO, Parsons School of Design, Columbia University and WNET, worked together with Jackson to organize a workshop to propel this effort forward.

A Pre-Workshop Public Art Project

The workshop was held at St. Christopher Community Center in Midland Beach. Before the event, WNYC installed a public art project with local volunteers to raise awareness about the location of new evacuation zones and to share information about emergency resources. 

The idea itself is simple: take the city’s evacuation zone map and install a section of it on the sidewalks of Midland Beach.

The installation is comprised of a series of chalk drawings running along the borders of each evacuation zone in the neighborhood leading up to the location of the event. Each section of drawings was rendered in the color that corresponds to the city’s map.

The drawings contain prompts for residents to identify how they can help their neighbors in an emergency as well as publicly-available resources.

This project embodies our commitment to bring visual journalism off the screen and into the streets.

The Superpower Workshop

The workshop was lead by Jason Baker and Lauren Shapiro from IDEO and Elliott Montgomery, a professor from Parsons, and his students. Andrew Kruczkiewicz, a climate researcher from Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society was also on hand to help.

We divided the participants into groups and asked them to identify their superhero powers, strengths and skills they could use in an emergency, and develop ways to collaborate.

Workshop attendees sharing their superpowers:

One resident declared that she was a cat lady, a “fixer-upper" and a registered nurse. Her superpowers included taking in pets, making repairs and giving first aid. Another person said they’re a good cook. And someone else said they’re a good organizer. Superpowers could be tangible or intangible. As the workshop progressed, residents realized how they could form a network to support each another in an emergency.

Combining Superpowers

One group designed an information packet about the neighborhood including resources like the evacuation map, the location of food pantries and shelters and a phone tree to use in a weather emergency.

Other ideas included identifying host residents in safer nearby neighborhoods, sharing contact information for neighbors willing to care for pets, and improving outreach to the most vulnerable residents in the community. 

By the end of the workshop, people forged new relationships and committed to designing the best solution for relying on each on other during the next major weather emergency.

This report is produced in collaboration with Peril and Promise, a public media initiative on the human impact of climate change from WNET.

“We’d be sitting around for days on end with nothing to do because the system would be down.” said Jeff Coolidge, an insurance adjuster who worked for FEMA on the effort. “We didn’t even have access to call these people,” he added, referring to the homeowners they were meant to help.

Coolidge was one of several current and former workers interviewed during a three month-long investigation by WSHU and WNYC public radio. The employees described an office staffed with adjusters that included former nightclub bouncers and disbarred lawyers. They say the real intent of FEMA’s workers was to make as much money as possible.

“You’d hear the adjusters out there smoking their cigarettes and whatnot and they’d say we want to milk this cow for as long as we possibly can.”

But the scene at the contractors’ offices was just one symptom of a larger problem. After nearly two and a half years the review is still not complete. It’s been bogged-down by lost files, unhappy homeowners, frequent management changes, even a fist fight instigated by a supervisor. More significantly, the contractors to which FEMA outsourced the work took home almost as much money as did the homeowners whom they were supposedly helping.

After widespread criticism of sloppy Sandy claims where thousands complained of underpayment, FEMA offered in early 2015 to reopen any homeowner’s case who felt they deserved a higher payment. The contactor FEMA hired to oversee this review  was Washington, D.C.-based OST, Optimal Solutions and Technologies.

OST had a history with FEMA. The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security scrutinized the company in 2010, saying a FEMA contracting officer who once worked for OST still had allegiances that benefited the company. Currently, another former OST employee, David Maurstad, works for FEMA and oversees part of OST’s contract there. Maurstad has gone back and forth between FEMA and OST since 2011. In his last year at OST, before he returned to FEMA, he made over $350,000, according to disclosure documents.

OST has so far been paid $149 million for reviewing Sandy claims, according to FEMA data.

OST and Maurstad did not return numerous messages. FEMA said Maurstad complies with all federal revolving door regulations. The agency added  there is frequent overlap between government and the private sector because a “limited pool of qualified individuals with relevant experience.”

As cost overruns mounted, FEMA brought in McKinsey & Company, the elite consulting firm.

Rutgers professor Jay Feinman wrote a book about McKinsey. He says the consulting firm is an expert at boosting profits at insurance companies

“We saw beginning in the 1990s and extending forward a number of insurance companies hired McKinsey to come in a figure out how to pay less on claims,” Feinman said.

It’s not clear whether McKinsey was hired to reduce payments to policyholders. The company declined to comment for this story.

According to FEMA, the consulting firm was brought in to “develop business processes.”

Either way, McKinsey and OST earned a lot of money: $190 million. That’s nearly as much as the $240 million the federal government gave property owners to make up for lowball payouts.

That ratio of the value of the claims versus the cost of processing them troubles Feinman. He  says typically insurance companies spend 10-to 15 percent on claims processing.

“So the idea that FEMA needed to spend almost as much on processing as the claims suggests there were problems, and it’s very hard to understand,” he said.

And these amounts are just the expenses that FEMA was able to confirm. The agency says there were additional administrative costs above and beyond what was paid to OST and McKinsey, but was unable to detail those.

Yet FEMA officials say they are satisfied with the cost of the operation.  

“The costs of it, while expensive, are still only a portion of what was paid out,” says Roy Wright, FEMA’s head of insurance.

“My focus has been throughout this to ensure everything that I could do to pay every dollar they were entitled to under their policy would be fulfilled.”

Lawmakers were more critical.

“It’s outrageous and when you think about what these entities were charged with doing,” said Congressman Tom MacArthur, a Republican who represents parts of southern New Jersey hard hit by Sandy.

He says FEMA, OST, and McKinsey were supposed to help cheated homeowners, not spend millions of dollars to cheat them again.

“That’s just another marker to me that something went horribly wrong in this process,” he added, “that they were more focused on covering their back and making sure that they paid the least as possible.“

Largely, the problems and costs involved with reviewing Sandy claims are unknown to storm victims. Those with lawyers paid to have their process done for them. The vast majority who didn’t hire a lawyer had no direct avenue of communication with FEMA.

After being told of the cost of the review, Long Beach resident Fran Adelson was disgusted. She submitted her claim to be reviewed by FEMA . At first, she was told she would get nothing more. Only after hiring a lawyer did FEMA paid her $31,000.

“Was this just for PR?,” she asked. “Was it just to say that you were going to something to help people? Like, what was the purpose of it?”

“Everything was in a different place,” she said. “Why is that piece of furniture over here? Why was that—you couldn’t wrap your mind around it.”

Sandy pushed four and a half feet of water through her house in Long Beach, New York. It washed in and out, destroying everything.

Every year for 27 years, Adelson paid premiums for a $250,000 flood policy. But all she got after Sandy was $56,000 to rebuild her entire house.

“I started to cry, because I was like we lost everything,” she recalled recently.

Adelson was one of thousands of Sandy victims who say they were ripped off by insurance companies. A total of 1,633 people sued in federal court in the first two years after the storm; their proceedings revealed widespread fraud and overt attempts to underpay homeowners. Congress grilled the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees the nations flood program. Finally, in the spring of 2015, FEMA officials made the decision to reopen any Sandy claim if the policy holder wasn’t happy with the award they received. FEMA said the process would be easy and wouldn’t require a lawyer.

But that’s not what happened.

Two and a half years later, Adelson calls FEMA’s Sandy Claims Review a public relations stunt. “You feel like you were teased and it felt like it was a sham. That’s what it felt like, it was a sham.”

Nearly 20,000 Sandy victims asked to have their claim reviewed by FEMA. During a three month-long investigation, public radio stations WSHU and WNYC uncovered a slow, mismanaged process that gamed homeowners into accepting lower payments while private companies profited.

Adelson’s story was typical.

She took FEMA at its word and did not hire a lawyer at first. Her review was bounced among three different caseworkers, who kept losing her paperwork. They told her, yes, she deserved more money. But after FEMA processed her claim, it mailed a letter stating it wasn’t going to pay anything additional.

“I just remember being really pissed off,” she said in an interview this fall.

Fed up, Adelson decided to hire a lawyer, knowing full well that he’d take a cut, but she figured at this point she had nothing else to lose. The lawyer pushed her case to an arbitration hearing, at which point the judge awarded her another $31,000.

Same paperwork, same house.

Of course, now she had to pay the attorney about a quarter of that.

“Why should a homeowner have to go through an attorney if FEMA’s opening it up?” Adelson asked in disbelief. “I could have used that extra 7-8-thousand dollars. I’m out that money.”

No one disputes that the Sandy claims process was sloppy the first time around, as homeowners battled with insurance companies to get enough money to repair their homes. FEMA was supposed to quickly right those wrongs, without forcing policyholders to hire lawyers. But people who trusted FEMA and didn’t go to arbitration hearings – which for the most part, meant they did not hire lawyers – received 30 percent less than those who did, according to FEMA data.

That works out to almost $4,500 less per homeowner.

To some advocates, what was more troubling than low offers were “zero offers.” According to federal statistics, 2700 people asked for a review, but FEMA gave them nothing extra on top of what they may have received directly from their insurance companies.

“I think those zero offers were from adjusters who had no clue what they were doing,” said Melissa Luckman, who represented about 115 homeowners with Touro Law Center’s Disaster Law Clinic in Central Islip, NY. “They just wanted to offer zero dollars to close out files.”

FEMA’s Sandy review process had two stages. In the first stage caseworkers took-in documents and information from policyholders and then offered a settlement. The second stage, arbitration, would only occur if the homeowner was unhappy with FEMA’s first offer. Arbitration typically required a lawyer who would represent the homeowner in a telephone hearing with a neutral arbitrator, who would go line by line through the claim.

Lawyers and other representatives for Sandy victims say FEMA  frequently offered lower settlement amounts unless a homeowner pushed to arbitration.

“When FEMA realized that homeowners meant business then they would take a closer look,” Luckman said, “as opposed to just a fly-by-night, BS initial offer.”

Despite its pledge to do things right, FEMA often relied on the same fraudulent damage reports that private companies used to cheat homeowners during the first round of insurance wrangling. FEMA says those reports were the only ones available; Luckman says the unwillingness to send out another adjuster to take a fresh assessment meant the homeowner had to hire his or her own engineer to get an honest damage report.

“It’s absolutely unfair,” Luckman said. “Our homeowners should not have been forced to spend $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 dollars.”

Adjusters working for FEMA point to another reason why payments to victims were low. It was a spreadsheet called “the McKinsey Tool.” (It was designed, in part, by McKinsey & Company, the elite consulting firm). Instead of doing a detailed review of the original claim, FEMA workers only had to fill-out this simple form, which would then spit out a total damage amount.

“It’s grossly and intentionally leaving stuff out that is money for homeowners,” said Jeff Major, a public adjuster who represents policyholders who want to challenge an insurance company’s assessment.

Major was troubled at the relative simplicity of the spreadsheet. For example, there was nothing in the spreadsheet that asked what kind of wood floors the homeowner may have had.

“If it’s just a wood floor that’s just slats of pine, that’s different from a parquet mahogany floor,” he explained. “There could be a $20,000 swing in a house on that number.”

If homeowners had the time, energy and money to push past the obstacles of fraudulent damage reports and the McKinsey Tool, they could eventually go to an arbitration hearing before a neutral judge. But FEMA had a couple of tactics that would keep them from getting there.

One method of gamesmanship was to withhold “undisputed losses.” Usually in the insurance world, if a case is disputed, the company pays the undisputed amount up front, and then pays however much more it might owe after the case is finally decided. But FEMA withheld even the undisputed amount. This practice angered federal lawmakers because it was a way to hold victims hostage to FEMA’s opinion.

Another FEMA tactic was to make higher offers at the last minute

 “You would say, ‘No, no. I just want to go to a neutral,’” Major, the public adjuster explained, referring to the neutral arbitration judges. “And the day before or two days before the neutral, you got a real offer.”

These games angered advocates for homeowners. They say FEMA should have been fair to begin with, and not forced people to hire a lawyer and go all the way to arbitration, sometimes called JAMs, judicial arbitration meditation services.

“JAMs were never supposed to be used,” said Luckman, using the name of the firm that supplied arbitration judges, Judicial Arbitration Mediation Services. “JAMs were there especially as a last resort if FEMA didn’t get it right during the entire settlement process.”

Despite all these complaints, FEMA stands by the results. Deputy Associate Administrator of the flood insurance program, Roy Wright, said the scope of reopening Sandy claims was unprecedented.

“I do look at our performance over the last two and half years and I believe that we have delivered for policy holders,” he said in an interview.

But that performance was not always delivered willingly. Back in 2015, FEMA resisted the idea of a third party arbitration judges. But, after the Sandy claims process got underway, about 2,500 policyholders hired lawyers and pursued arbitration because they wanted more money than FEMA had been willing to pay. Now, Wright acknowledges that arbitration was necessary to, in his words, “fill in the gaps”

He added, “I think that was a good and right thing for us to do to ensure that everyone got a fair shake.”

Despite the rocky road, the federal lawmakers who prompted FEMA to offer policy holders a second chance to get satisfaction say the review did help many people finally get paid fairly. FEMA ended up giving victims an extra $240 million above what insurance companies had paid out the first time around, according to the agency’s data.

But policyholders were not the only ones who benefited from the claims review.

Private contractors did also. More on that in part two of this story.

"I'm not going to deny that these are very complicated projects," said Robin, "some officials say the state should get involved."

Today, she lives in a 3-bedroom apartment in Far Rockaway, Queens, the same neighborhood where she was rescued five years ago Sunday. Her daughter Najh-ja, who was six at the time, remembers riding in the cab of a tractor in the middle of night. For her, the hotels were fun and exciting. But for Manuel, the pressure of not having a permanent home was intense. And eating greasy takeout food was bad for her health.

Now that she can cook again, she's 73 pounds slimmer. But she has new housing issues — this time with one of her neighbors. But she tries to maintain perspective.

"I lost everything I built for 46 years," she said in a recent interview. "But when you do look back at it and think about it, you know, some people died."

Washington bureau chief of USA TODAY Susan Page discusses the latest in national political news.      

Josh Robin, reporter and anchor for NY1, reports on what the City has accomplished in the five years since Superstorm Sandy to prepare for future storms.

Bernard Schwartz, director at Unterberg Poetry Center at 92nd Street Y, talks about their new collaborative book that explores the minutiae and the meaning of the modern workplace.  He’s joined by two of the contributors, writers Sloane Crosley and Gary Shteyngart, who share their memorable working experiences.

Mark Thompson, president and CEO of The New York Times Company and author of Enough Said: What's Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics? (St. Martin's Griffin, 2017), discusses the language of politics -- how we talk and write (and tweet) about it today.   

These homes were built before anyone thought the neighborhoods were at risk of flooding. A few years ago, they were added to updated flood maps. That means experts think they have at least a 1 percent chance of flooding in any given year.

The city paid to repair these homes, but not to raise them higher off the ground where they would be above the flood waters. The city offered to rebuild or elevate homes only where the repair work was estimated to cost more than 50 percent of the pre-storm market value. These homeowners also face large flood insurance bills because of the newly recognized risk.

Sandy hit Oct. 29, 2012. Nearly five years later, Amy Peterson, director of the Mayor's Office of Housing and Recovery Operations, said the city couldn't elevate everyone's home. Still, officials wanted to help homeowners that didn't have flood insurance.

"The city has tons of waterfront communities. These are affordable communities where people buy their first homes where people have lived for generations. these are places that we want to be able to continue to be these communities," Peterson said.

Raising utilities can also minimize future damage, she added.

Build it Back was the program the city developed after Sandy to administer federal funds to rebuild damaged homes.

Build It Back Homes Newly In Flood Zones That Weren't Elevated

Darker purple indicates more homes that weren't elevated by Build It Back.

More than 8,100 homes went through the single family home program, according to data the city provided this month. About 15 percent of those are still having work done or awaiting payment. The city expects to finish the program early next year.

About 1,330 homes will ultimately be elevated or entirely rebuilt, the data shows.

To hear WNYC reporter Robert Lewis talking to All Things Considered host Jami Floyd about the program, click on the audio player above.

That was where WNYC first met hairdresser Richard Blanck. Like his wife, Blanck was born and raised in the area. And like many of his neighbors, the 72-year-old refused to evacuate during Sandy.

"It was mighty scary. It sounded like a jet plane was landing on your street," Blanck said. "I stayed on the porch. I was up to my ankles in water and the high voltage things on the poles started to spark. That's when I jumped back in the house."

Blanck's cellar filled up with eight feet of water. Four feet filled the garage. Lost were a basement of memories: family heirlooms, Christmas ornaments, a wedding dress. It would be two months before his heat and electricity were restored and another two years for him to repair the damage.

After that, it was all too easy to imagine another storm hitting.

"I would not live near water, I'm too old to start to rebuild," he remarked in a telephone interview from his new home in Wake Forest, North Carolina, where he and his wife live now. They are more than a hundred miles from the ocean. Watching news about this fall's hurricanes brings him back to Sandy. "My heart goes out to these people, especially the poor, the ones on the islands," he said. "There's no words to express the sadness you feel for them."

Blanck says he's happier now. He prefers the quieter, softer way of life outside of New York City. And he's glad to be nowhere near the ocean.

The feds agreed to kick in $335 million for the first phase, a roughly two-mile stretch along the Lower East Side. That portion of the project — called the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project — is basically a berm with plantings and recreation space that will act as a barrier during a storm and a stunning new park the rest of the time. The Bjarke Ingels Group, a renowned Danish architecture firm, cam up with the idea. They originally wanted to build three new walkways over the FDR Drive and to enhance two existing bridges, all to improve community access to the new park.

Five years after Sandy, the plan — perhaps the most high-profile of numerous resiliency projects to protect the city and region — is still just lines on paper. The groundbreaking has been delayed by at least 18 months, and already some of the amenities promised to the community have been removed to cut costs.

“Right now, I don’t feel any more prepared than we were five years ago,” said Trever Holland, who lives in an affordable housing complex in the densely packed neighborhood. “We know what can happen now and the fact that we don’t even have temporary solutions is a bit troublesome,” Holland said.

When Sandy hit, Holland watched the floodwaters burst into his building's lobby. Then he saw sparks and heard an explosion before the power went out. Now, he sits on a joint Community Board 3 and Community Board 6 waterfront task force and has been following the progress of the Big U since it was announced. Like others in the area he spent more than a year seeing public presentations promising a groundbreaking in June 2017. Then, suddenly, that date changed to "TBD" – to be determined. The city now says it will break ground in 2019.

The delay isn’t the only concern. The city recently scrapped plans to build the new bridges over the FDR Drive that would have connected public housing residents to the waterfront.

“We see them actually scaling back in the promises they made to community members,” said Ceci Pineda, resiliency training and policy coordinator at the Good Old Lower East Side, or GOLES, a community advocacy organization.

The city’s chief resilience officer, Daniel Zarrilli, said access to the park is still important to the city. But the city, which is kicking in more than $400 million for the Lower East Side project, has to live within a budget.

As for the delay, Zarrilli said the park-berm is unique — a massive project that combined infrastructure with open-space, all in a dense, urban environment along the water.

“We’ve been working really extensively with the community in order to get this to the right project we can implement,” Zarrilli said.

He said the city is moving as quickly as possible given the urgency of climate change.

Zarrilli said the city has made progress on a number of resiliency projects started after Sandy like the Rockaway boardwalk and stone barriers in Sea Gate.

Still, a number of ideas and projects are unfunded. There’s no clear pot of money to pay for other parts of the “Big U” system of protections that was intended to hug the bottom half of Manhattan.

“The ‘Big U’ might actually be just half a 'J,'” quipped City Councilman Mark Treyger, the chairman of the City Council’s recovery and resiliency committee.

Treyger says the city hasn’t made as much progress as it should in the five years since the storm to protect property and lives.

“When people say ‘Are we better prepared?’ — that’s a loaded question," he said. "We have studies now. We have many great studies and great pictures. But we don’t have the funds to complete these projects."

This report is produced in collaboration with Peril and Promise, a public media initiative on the human impact of climate change from WNET.

The historic flooding in Texas raises questions about just how much New York City has done since Sandy to plan for the next disaster — and how urgently Mayor de Blasio has been working to mitigate climate change.

Compared to President Donald Trump, the mayor "is a paragon of environmentalism," said Steve Cohen, executive director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. But de Blasio is not as much of an innovator as former Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

"Bloomberg was a results-oriented manager," Cohen told WNYC host David Furst. "De Blasio's a political actor. What he is trying to do is create an impression that he is in favor of something and tries to get political credit because his goal is the next political job he may have."

The indebted National Flood Insurance Program was founded in 1968 and has not been updated much to fit the reality of flood insurance today. Jay Feinman is a professor of contract law and a flood insurance specialist at Rutgers University in Camden. He says congress has a bipartisan interest in improving flood insurance and providing opportunities to mitigate flood damage before the next one strikes.

One example is a NFLIP reauthorization act co-sponsored by New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez.

"It's important to note that this is a bipartisan issue. The Menendez bill is co-sponsored by Senator Kennedy, Republican from Louisiana. Other co-sponsors are Elizabeth Warren and Marco Rubio. What they have in common is they represent oceanfront states," Feinman tells WNYC's Jami Floyd.

NFLIP is set to lapse at the end of September unless congress votes for an extension. The Wall Street Journal reports that NFLIP is approximately $25 billion in debt to the U.S. Department of the Treasury and will be hard-pressed to pay out the wave of impending claims from Harvey damage.

The National Flood Insurance Program became widely unpopular after battered Sandy survivors were not able to receive substantial flood insurance claims. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which houses the federal flood insurance program, was forced to reopen more than 140,000 claims after complaints of mishandling and low-balling by insurers. 

Since Sandy, Congress has tried to reform flood insurance policy, but the system remains difficult to navigate and woefully in debt. With Harvey promising to create long lasting damage, Congress is under renewed pressure to resolve issues with the National Flood Insurance Program before it lapses on Sept. 30.

Jay Feinman, a flood insurance specialist at Rutgers University, told WNYC's Jami Floyd that re-authorization of the flood insurance program is important, but so is federal support for prevention efforts before the next flood hits.

New Jersey Rep. Bob Menendez is the co-sponsor of a bi-partisan bill — announced in June — that seeks to reauthorize the program and also provide low-interest loans for homeowners to invest in flood mitigation projects. It's co-sponsored by Republican Sen. John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana. 

Texas Republican Representative Jeb Hensarling is also proposing a bill that would renew the program. His legislation would expand opportunities for private insurers to take on more responsibility in the process, a path that many see as inevitable given the $25 billion debt currently hanging over the federal program.

Congress has until Sept. 30 to reauthorize the program. 

Gateway encompasses several projects in both states.

Last month, in two instances, trains got stuck in the tunnel to Penn Station, causing massive delays. An extra tunnel would alleviate the pressure on the tunnel, so why not just revive the ARC tunnel, which was so far along already?

One reason is the MTA's new 7 line extension to Manhattan's far West Side.

"Those changes in Hudson Yards precluded the ARC option," Richard Barone, vice president of Transportation at the Regional Plan Association, said.  "So it's actually in the way."

The Gateway Project is also hoping to provide redundancy not just to tunnels, but to things like bridges in New Jersey, such as the Portal Bridge, which is a century old and, if it were to fail, could be as devastating to commuters in New Jersey as losing a tunnel.

Having that extra tunnel means Amtrak can finally shutdown the existing tunnel and make repairs and upgrades to that tunnel, which was damaged during Sandy. Experts call it a ticking time bomb because needs essential components need to be replaced.

As for Penn Station, it's already operating at double the capacity that it was designed for, and this project would alleviate pressure by adding rails and platforms that can absorb more people.

Right now, officials are still trying to figure out exactly what that will look like and exactly where in Penn it'll happen.

Shirley Aikens, the resident leader for Carey Gardens in Brooklyn, said her development is still suffering from leaky roofs, peeling paint, and mildew. And she said they’re still using portable boilers, which are creating additional problems.

“They are very noisy, smoke comes out of it, many residents had complained that they had been sick from it, and they also have sleepless nights, as I do myself, and I live on the tenth floor and I can hear the noise coming from these boilers,” she said.

Lauretta Brumfield, who lives at the Coney Island Houses, said the city hasn’t made good on other promises either, like a commitment to hiring local residents for reconstruction.

“Nobody from our development works there,” she said. “But every single day there’s 50 to 60 workers outside.”

Joy Sinderbrand, who is vice president of New York City Housing Authority’s Office of Recovery and Resilience, faced questions from city council members about construction timelines, and why rebuilding is taking so long.

She testified that the scope of the work is unprecedented for the city, due in large part to the destruction wrought by Sandy, and noted that construction has begun on 43 buildings. She also said the housing authority plans to have major construction started at every development damaged by Sandy by the end of the year.

Sinderbrand also said the housing authority is committed to hiring more of its residents, and has so far put 164 to work. 

— Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen

For more information, click here to visit the official film web site.

@WNYC remember waiting about 2 hours to vote because of the lines but voting itself was relatively quick / easy

.@WNYC 2012's the only election I've missed since turning 18. Was doing emergency response w/ @HumaneSociety @nycoem https://t.co/xLV33dwpeR

@WNYC you asked about voting? I took a break from throwing out all my worldly possessions to vote in 2012. https://t.co/POkvzuWpZz

@WNYC yes, I voted near Columbus circle. We had no damage from the storm, area was quiet but no lines at my polling place.

@WNYC We didn't power, but our polling place did. So it was normal, tho I lingered a while after voting in order to enjoy the heat!

@WNYC yep, no power at home and I think the polling station was run by generators....I'm a naturalized citizen....nothing would stop me

Sullivan's home was quickly repaired thanks to Amish volunteers. But one thing they didn’t do was make it more resilient to future storms by elevating it on stilts. For that part of the recovery, she turned to the city’s homeowner recovery program, Build it Back. She signed up when it opened three years ago under then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg and traded paperwork back and forth.

This week, Sullivan received notice that she had been removed from the program. She was one of 900 Build it Back participants who fell off the rolls in the past 12 months, as the city sought to finish construction on all homes by the end of 2016 — a deadline the de Blasio Administration recently said it would not be able to meet.

Back in July, Sullivan was frustrated and confused when the city gave her two weeks to sign a grant agreement. She was unsatisfied with the design of the new elevated house that the city was proposing to build for her.

"They kept just calling me to tell me I had to sign, that they have a deadline," she said. "That’s what their priority was: to comply with their deadlines. And they told me: 'That’s it.' They aren’t doing another blueprint or doing anything else over."

The latest blueprint she had received from the city included a bathroom that could not accommodate her mother's wheelchair. Sullivan had also been asked to bring her mother to the signing. Her mom was unenthusiastic about being put 14 feet in the air and New York was in the middle of heatwave. So Sullivan didn’t do anything.

After WNYC inquired about Sullivan's case this week, Build it Back reinstated her.

“If it was an information gap or knowledge gap, we will reconsider,” said Build it Back spokesman Matt Viggiano. “We want to make sure that people act with full information.”

Over its brief three-year lifespan, Build it Back’s caseload has fallen from more than 20,000 cases to approximately 8,500 today. Many applicants dropped out early. Director Amy Peterson said about 5,000 of the original registrants never finished filling out applications. Others may have found other repair options or given up out of frustration.

The fact that 900 people were dropped from Built it Back in the past year alone startled counselors at nonprofits that work with Build it Back clients, because over the past year, the city has ramped up the number of deadlines homeowners must meet.

“They’re told they have to do X within 14 days,” said Margaret Becker, the director of disaster recovery and community development at Legal Services NYC, a nonprofit legal organization that counsels Build it Back clients. “These 14-day deadlines are being enforced, as if what the program needs is to start kicking these homeowners forward, right? And the consequence is that they are kicking these homeowners out.”

The Build it Back program was not able to provide a breakdown of why people left the program’s rolls over the last 12 months. It has asked the City University of New York to embark on a study to survey the reasons for the attrition since the program began in 2013.

Peterson, Build it Back’s director, said that the program needed to balance the need to move forward with participants’ extenuating circumstances.

“Setting deadlines is incredibly important to move people forward,” she said. “But we have homeowners who deal with issues, who have financial issue, serious illnesses, and we allow them to pause in their process.”      

Becker said her clients sometimes succeed in their appeals, but not always. And she said that without a lawyer or other advocate working for them, Build it Back homeowners have little chance of cutting through the bureaucracy.

She said she recognized the need to accelerate the Build it Back program, whose staff is far more familiar with complaints that it moves too slowly rather than too quickly. But Becker suggested the city should try to complete work on the easy cases, while giving more time to low-income homeowners who have complicated situations, or are having trouble paying back the money they received from other government sources, a prerequisite of Build it Back work.

Another applicant, Amelia Primiani, was removed from the program last August for failing to meet a deadline to provide proof of her income. But her daughter, Emily Primiani, told WNYC she had never heard about the deadline. Instead, she said she later found out program staff had been calling her estranged older brother, who had stopped managing their mother’s case two years earlier.

“We received one letter,” she said. “And the letter was the one that told us that we were being removed from the program for lack of...any contact.”

Her mother appealed to get back into the program, but lost. After WNYC inquired about her case, Emily received a call from Project Uplift, a nonprofit affiliated with the city’s recovery efforts that helps eligible property owners elevate their homes above flood level. The program was non-committal, Emily said, but it was a step forward.

UPDATED 11:30 a.m., Oct. 28, 2016, with more complete presentation of Build it Back public notice.

After Sandy destroyed many homes on this street and others in Staten Island, the residents of Oakwood Beach approached New York state for a buyout. Now Oakwood Beach is one of three neighborhoods in Staten Island that have become part of a state buyout program. The buyouts are voluntary, with 300 of the 320 homes interested in the program.

The hope is that a "managed retreat" like this will serve as a buffer if extreme weather strikes again. 

Federal officials, recognizing that a large part of the issue was the steady disinvestment in public housing over the years, awarded the New York City Housing Authority a $3 billion grant for Sandy repairs. The funds were created to fix roofs, sidewalk and boilers at 33 developments damaged by the storm. And it's to be used for resiliency upgrades to prevent future storms from damaging the buildings. The grant is the largest in FEMA history.

You can see exactly what stage each development is in and what the money is being used for here.

This year, NYCHA finally began spending some of the grant for upgrades and resiliency. Construction has begun on three sites, with 23 others in the pre-construction phase.

At a building that's a model for other developments, Lower East Side Rehab V, construction is nearly complete. 

The city has installed low-cost elements, like a flood wall next to a ramp that leads to the basement and the boilers. 

The top of the stairs leading to the basement now have a 50-pound, removable storm gate that can be easily installed by housing staff if there's a storm surge warning.

Since the boiler system can't be moved to another location, there's now a flood wall inside the boiler room. The doorway has a flood panel that can be easily installed. And the basement windows have metal frames on the outside to quickly affix 20-pound aluminum panels.

Joy Sinderbrand, vice president for the office of Recovery and Resilience at NYCHA, says her office is designing each development on a case-by-case basis. "At each of the sites this looks different, and it has to do with the building height above sea level, the building orientation, whether there's landscaping that can be used, whether there are elements that can be designed into the building," she said.

So far, NYCHA has spent $284 million of the FEMA grant on repairs across the city. It's spent an additional $144 million over the past two years on design for these projects, plus asbestos abatement and boiler demolition.

When Sandy hit, 64 boilers were damaged or destroyed. The city brought in mobile boilers, which cost $1 million a month and frequently broke down. After two years, the City Council held a NYCHA hearing in a NYCHA housing development to draw attention to the problem.

Today, 16 developments are using 41 mobile boilers, which cost $500,000 a month total. These are newer boilers than the ones installed after Sandy; they are raised above the floodplain and are expected to be in place until 2018.

At the Carlton Manor Houses in the Rockaways, the mobile boilers are housed in two trailers and take up half a handball court. The tenant association president, Lawanda John-Gainey, lives on the 11th floor. It takes a while to get hot water up to her apartment, she said.

"You got to run the water in the tub, run the water in the sink, flush the toilet. And just wait," she said, adding it can take up to 30 minutes before the hot water is flowing.

NYCHA says it's also revamped how it updates residents on evacuation orders. The agency said if there is another evacuation, it will use a combination of robo-calls, social media and door-knocking to inform residents about what's coming and what their options are.

Gainey said she wasn't aware of NYCHA's evacuation plans. She said she'd be reluctant to evacuate to a city shelter after her experience during Sandy. "Last time they had people go to different shelters, but they had no way for those people to get back," she said. "No, that's no good, you don't just send me to West Bubble and I don't have no way to get back."

But one thing that's rarely mentioned by officials or residents is how the storm may have been a blessing in disguise. Many of these housing developments were short of funds for overdue repairs and upgrades that they will now be getting, thanks to the FEMA grant.

There will be several more years until construction is complete, though. Until then,  many residents are still living in vulnerable developments.

"We will fall short of that goal, for which my team and I take personal responsibility," he states.

Instead, de Blasio estimates that about three-quarters of the construction projects will be finished by Dec. 31 and 90 percent of them will have begun construction.

The mayor goes on to explain that elevating attached homes, relocating people with medical conditions and navigating the city's own permitting process have proved more challenging than expected. Taking people out of their homes during the upcoming holiday season was also a concern.

"As more and more homes have progressed, we’ve gained a much clearer sense of the most challenging cases, and recognition that it will take more than the remaining weeks ahead to bring them to completion," he continues. "Best‐laid plans need to change when confronted with the realities families and communities face on the ground."  

In a statement Monday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it would create new maps to show which parts of the city would be inundated by a 100-year-flood at some point in the future. The announcement comes after many environmentalists and planners criticized the agency for failing to take sea-level rise into account in creating the maps, saying that a beachfront house elevated to a "safe" height today wouldn't be able to withstand a minor flood 50 years from now.

City officials, meanwhile, said they would use the new maps to determine the elevation at which the ground floors of new buildings would have to be constructed, though many details have yet to be sorted out.

"The intent of the new climate-smart flood map is to develop the tools to give us a better understanding of long-term risk, and so we can then start baking that understanding into how we build," said Daniel Zarrilli, the director of the city's Office of Rebuilding and Resiliency.

In the other part of the agreement, FEMA agreed to revise the draft flood map it proposed in January 2015, which would have doubled the number of homes and buildings in the flood zone. That proposal alarmed city officials and housing advocates because it would have severely financially strained thousands of low- and middle-income New Yorkers: property owners in FEMA flood plains must buy flood insurance to qualify for a mortgage, a requirement that can add thousands of dollars to the yearly cost of maintaining a building.

The city had said FEMA used faulty data from a storm in 1950 that threw off predictions of what should be considered a "100-year-flood."

"The result really skewed the whole analysis, because this one storm was much worse than any of the other winter season storms," said Philip Orton, an assistant research professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, who examined FEMA's methodology on behalf of the city.

It is expected that both maps — one to guide new building and the other for insurance on old buildings — will take three to four years to finalize.

Now, another problem has emerged: the program is fast running out of money. 

The director of Build it Back, Amy Peterson, told the City Council Committee on Recovery and Resiliency Thursday that the program needed $500 million above and beyond the roughly $2.2 billion that had been allocated to it from federal funds. She said that numerous unanticipated factors had increased the program's costs, such as building staircases to the back doors of people's homes once they were elevated above flood level, which previous estimates had not taken into account.

At the same time that costs have increased, the actual number of participants in the program has dropped, from more than 20,000 shortly after the storm, to about 9,000 today. The chairman of the committee, Councilman Mark Treyger, stuttered at times in disbelief at the news.

"We were told by the mayor — we were told by the administration — repeatedly that this amount — that these funds would be sufficient to meet the needs of all the Build it Back applicants," he said. "So it is very hard for us to comprehend how we're now saying we need $500 million of more city money, and we actually have helped less than half of that 22,000 figure."

The city is proposing to divert about $350 million in federal funding from coastal resilience projects to cover the cost overruns. The resilience initiatives, Peterson said, would still be undertaken, but instead will use city funds intended for long-term capital infrastructure projects.

A spokesman for Build it Back, Raul Contreras, said that the city capital plan passed in June had allocated enough money to cover both the the long-term infrastructure projects as well as the resilience initiatives, and that, "No project will be delayed or experience a funding gap as a result of this project." 

in addition, Peterson said that the de Blasio administration would no longer seek reimbursement for $150 million in overtime and other city agency expenses incurred during and shortly after the storm.

Construction workers were putting some finishing touches on the final section, between Beach 117th Street and Beach 126th Street early Friday, in preparation for an opening later in the evening.

Marge O'Brien and her friend, Rita Balfe, were sitting on a bench near Beach 117th Street, enjoying the boardwalk despite overcast skies. Both said the new concrete boardwalk is an improvement over the previous wooden one, which was heavily damaged during Sandy.

"Oh, the new boardwalk is 100 percent better," O'Brien said.

Balfe agreed.

"The wood didn't hold up every year, you know, so it always had to be replaced," she said. "I mean, it was a beautiful boardwalk, but nothing compared to what this is now."

Even with cloudy skies, several cyclists were riding up and down. Ben Foley said the new boardwalk makes for a much smoother ride, and he hopes the opening of the new stretch will help local businesses, too. "I think they rely on the boardwalk," he said.

Other residents said while they were excited it was finally ready, there are some downsides, including obstructed views of the beach. Protective dunes were built up post-Sandy.

"Now we can't see the ocean," said Timothy Curtain. "But, you know, we don't want no water coming back again, that was a disaster."

He said he's confident the new boardwalk was built to last.

"This will never move...not in our lifetime, anyway," he said. "Cement and steel, I guess, is the way to go."

This fall, the city will continue construction between Beach 19th Street and Beach 39th Street, which is currently open, with all new construction since Sandy slated for completion by next Memorial Day.

You'll hear:

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"The takeaway from this story is at a time when tens of thousands of people were out of their homes and suffering after Sandy, the private insurance companies walked away with $400 million in profit in the wake of Sandy," Sullivan said. "It's difficult to understand how they could of made so much profit at a time when so many people were saying they were underpaid by those same companies."

Sullivan said since the documentary about her investigation, "The Business of Disaster," was released, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced sweeping changes to the federal flood program, including the reevaluation of their contracts with private insurance companies and looking into the profit margins these companies are making.  

→ Watch the trailer: 

→ Watch the entire film here: The FRONTLINE/NPR documentary is called "The Business of Disaster."

The goats will graze on 1.5 acres in the northeast corner of park. They're fenced in on a hilly section of the Vale of Cashmere, next to the Donald and Barbara Zucker Natural Exploration Area, eating the invasive species that encroached after 50 trees were damaged by Sandy.

The goats, with their four stomachs each, will devour the poison ivy, English Ivy, and goutweed that have proliferated now that sunshine pierces the tree canopy. "The goats will eat anything and everything and that's the beauty of having them here," said Sue Donoghue, the president of the Prospect Park Alliance. "They'll actual help us with the removal of invasive species."

Eleanor Forster was on a morning stroll with her 3-year-old daughter and stumbled on the goats. "Having the animals here in a kind of natural environment without being in the zoo, it's lovely," she said.

But no petting these goats. In addition to the fact that they're behind an 8-foot-high fence, they're also covered in poison ivy (which doesn't affect them).

The goats have grazed around the region in other parks, including Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island and the Gateway National Recreation Area.

After the goats are gone, the park will plant native trees and shrubs in that area.

The homes and tracts of land were purchased by the state through the NY Rising Acquisition-for-Redevelopment Program at pre-Sandy value in an effort to make Sandy-damaged neighborhoods more resilient. Buyers of the homes at auction are required to raise them to comply with FEMA's post-Sandy flood guidelines.

At the Hilton Garden Inn on Staten Island on Tuesday, more than 350 people showed up to bid on 61 properties. The crowd was a mix of developers with experience at auctions, and rookies looking for a bargain. Anyone with a $25,000 cashier’s check could bid.

Albert Payah, 47, who runs a small furniture business on Staten Island, hoped to score a deal on a small bungalow that he can either rent, or renovate and sell. But when he saw the long line to get into the auction, he regretted taking the day off of work.

“I'm not happy seeing this. The enthusiasm just went down,” he said, surveying the crowd. “Especially when I see the Chinese people, they're going to overbid. That I know. They're known to pay top dollar for real estate.”

Standing with a group of half-a-dozen fellow Chinese developers, Danny Ling, 37, from Staten Island just shook his head and laughed. He had his own concerns. “The Russian guys have money,” he said.

Some of those who showed up, such as Thomas Cunsolo, 55, knew the impact of Sandy first-hand. His home in Midland Beach was so damaged that he's been living in a cramped apartment ever since.

“I'm looking to get a bigger piece of property than I had so I could build back,” he said. “The bigger the property you could build back safer.”

The event was run by an experienced auction house. But many of the bidders, unfamiliar with the rules, stalled the proceedings several times by over bidding, or not paying attention to which properties were already taken.

“This is not a game folks,” the auctioneer scolded at one point.

For each round, the highest bidder got to choose up to 5 properties. Once taken, they were removed from a board.

The highest bid went for $575,000 to a Homeland Security Officer who's expecting his fourth child soon. He chose one of the two Brooklyn properties in Howard Beach.

The bidding went fast, and within a hour-and-a-half all the properties were snatched up. The lowest bid was $35,000.

As for Payah, Ling, and Cunsolo, they all left empty-handed.

The state bought all 61 properties for $18.1 million. The total bids at the end of the auction added up to $9.9 million.

After the auction, the winners lined up to sign paperwork and hand over their $25,000 cashier’s checks.

Angela Tenteromano Nickel, a registered nurse from Great Kills, won a 2-family home on Wiman Avenue, also in Great Kills. She’ll pay $160,000 for the beige clapboard house with peeling paint and a rotting shed in the back. That's half of its pre-Sandy value.

“I came for two reasons: to make some money, and to better the community,” she said.

She doesn’t want to see her neighborhood pocked with empty homes. Plus, she’d like to have a nice place to rent to two of her older children, at a reasonable rate.

As for the threat of another storm, she called Sandy a “fluke,” but admitted, “it worries the shit out of me.”

Across the street from Nickel’s new home is where Ursla Rosa, 62, has lived for more than 25 years. She’s glad that seven homes on her street sold at auction.

“I think it's a good idea,” she said. “They update houses and remodel and the block will look better, the way it was before.”

But Eric Goldstein with the Natural Resources Defense Council is worried the auction program fails to account for long-term resilience.

“There's a concern that what's being sold here may be fool's gold,” he said.

There's a scientific consensus that flood zones will face more frequent and intense storms. While the state is turning some of the lowest lying neighborhoods in Staten Island into open space, Goldstein questioned why the government is encouraging people to rebuild in any flood zones.

“Even if a home is elevated that doesn't mean the car that's in the driveway or the senior citizen walking in the street is protected,” Goldstein said. “There are all types of costs to government agencies for essential services during storms and rescue.”

Proceeds from the auctions will go toward affordable and public housing.

The transportation authority said it has to close the tunnel under the East River because of storm damage from Sandy. But with its plans still in formation, residents in this isolated pocket of Brooklyn, where seagulls circle above, said on Sunday they were anxious because just getting to their train station is already a hike.

"You have people that come in on the bus," said Maria Garrett, referring to the preferred mode of transit to the Rockaway Parkway train station. Garrett said she and her neighbors can't afford more inconveniences on their way to work in Manhattan.

"Maybe 15 to 20 more minutes added to our commute but no more than that," she said.

There's a lot of confusion about the proposed shutdown. The MTA said it needs to close the Canarsie Tunnel for repairs in 2019. It's asking riders whether they'd prefer a year and a half without any service to Manhattan, or three years with partial (20 percent) service. Extra trains would be added at connecting stations along the L, such as Lorimer and Broadway Junction, and shuttle buses and ferries would also help get riders to Manhattan.

But 28-year-old Lavar Phillilps said he didn't trust the plan, because shuttles were already inadequate when there was weekend and evening work. "It takes too long and it's not enough service," he said.

Phillips had another suggestion: "Maybe provide, like, a car service or voucher or something? I mean because people are paying all this money to go to the MTA and then every time you turn around, not even just the L train, every other train, there's like, oh, there's service delay or service interruption."

But Jessica Gaston said she believed extra service would make a difference. "They have provided enough shuttles to get by," she said, of other train disruptions. She said Canarsie is so far from Manhattan that the MTA should try to keep some trains running during the longer reconstruction option of three years.

Several other riders, however, said they preferred to get the job done quicker even if they lose all train service across the river. Garrett said many Canarsie residents are home owners and would never consider moving during the reconstruction.

Closer to Manhattan, a few Bushwick residents who rent said they would consider leaving the L line. "It's going to be chaos," said Gerardo Hernandez. At least one other rider agreed.

"I would probably move somewhere closer to a different line," said Kelsey Garcia, who works in Manhattan.

But one rider who gave his name only as Michael said he wanted to know more about the service options, especially ferries. "After a while, neighborhoods get accustomed to whatever," he said.

The MTA is planning to hold a hearing on the L train options this Thursday.

"By far, the worst-damaged tunnel was Canarsie," said MTA president Tom Prendergast, naming the tunnel that carries the L train under the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn. He said workers did what repairs they could, and flushed as much of the salt out as possible, in the days and weeks post-Sandy. "But salt remains, and so the corrosion continues. And there's a ticking clock with that."

Now, the MTA is preparing to make what it says are vital repairs: replacing the concrete that lines the cast-iron tunnel; rebuilding the concrete duct bank that runs alongside the tracks and carries electrical components, and installing new tracks and signals. (The MTA will also add entrances and elevators to the First Avenue and Bedford Avenue stations.) However, that requires the tunnel to shut down.

Here's where things get tricky.

At a meeting Thursday night, the MTA will present the public with two scenarios currently under consideration.

Option A is designed to be a shorter, if sharper, shock: full closure of both tracks in the tunnel for eighteen months, beginning in January 2019. This accelerates the work — but limits the L train service to Brooklyn only. "That's sort of the mantra 'get in, get done, get out,'" said New York City Transit head Ronnie Hakim.

Option B preserves some service by keeping one track open. But "some" is the operative word here. Because of the need to single-track through the tunnel, "we'd reduce our service by about 80 percent," said Hakim. Meanwhile, the length of the work doubles...to three years.

Under each scenario, subway service on nearby lines like the A, C, G, J, and M would be increased, and the G would run full-length trains. The MTA would also run extra bus service over the Williamsburg Bridge, create shuttle bus service within Brooklyn to nearby subway stops, and consider new ferry service from North 7th Street to 20th Street in Manhattan. And once passengers get off the ferry at 20th Street, Hakim said, they'll be greeted by new Select Bus Service, the MTA's brand of bus rapid transit. "SBS on steroids," as she put it, "to bring people where they want to go."

(Here's what's NOT on the table: closing the tunnel on weekends only. The silica dust that gets generated by destroying the old concrete raises air quality issues — workers have to use protective gear, but the stuff floats around for days and they can't run trains until they test the air. Nor will the MTA build a brand-new tunnel under the East River before taking the Canarsie tunnel out of service.)

"At the end of the day," said Hakim, "the one thing that's very clear to us is that we need to repair the tunnel. That work is a top priority. It needs to get done." 

Transportation experts and transit advocates are leaning towards Option A. The Regional Plan Association said in a briefing memo that "the loss of the L train service to and within Manhattan for an 18-month period will be disruptive, but doubling the construction timeline, along with the higher associated costs and extending the pain of a huge service cut, is far less desirable."

Cate Contino, a coordinator with the Straphangers Campaign, agreed. "I as a rider would rather ‘quick and dirty,'" she said. "Get in, get out."

Four hundred thousand people use the L train on an average weekday, with about 225,000 going between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

MTA President Tom Prendergast said the agency will make a decision about which option to pick in two or three months.

More details about the L train work, as well as information about the MTA's two public meetings on the project, can be found here.

Previous articles:

L Train Shutdown? Wait for It. Then 'Boom!'

What the L: Residents Outraged By Possibility of Canarsie Tube Closure

MTA Chief: More Sandy-Related Subway Tunnel Closures Are Coming

The Corps had also been considering keeping the inlet open and erecting a series of berms, walls and other protections right along the bay's interior shore.

But after more than a year of studying both options, Project Manager Dan Falt said Thursday that the Corps' "tentatively selected plan" called for the gates instead.

"When you actually started to look at the actual details, you noticed how much construction it would require, and a lot of the construction in the wetlands, and that it was not as environmentally friendly as we thought," he said.

The gates will also be cheaper, Falt said. Last year, the Corps said the two options would cost roughly the same, but he said more refined estimates showed the interior protections would cost $5 billion, while the gates, which will remain open most of the time and close before big storms, are estimated to cost about $2 billion. 

The gates, even when open, would partially obstruct the mouth of the bay: the designs the Corps is studying would close off about 70 percent of the width of the inlet, which is located between Rockaway Peninsula and Brooklyn. Catherine Seavitt, an associate professor of landscape architecture at City College, said narrowing the opening was problematic because the bay already suffers from the presence of sewage treatment plants nearby.

"So that material would be in that back bay for longer until it can get flushed out on a tidal cycle through the opening," she said. "So there are many people who are swimmers in the back bay who would swim on an incoming tide but would never swim on an outgoing tide."

That concern was shared by the de Blasio administration, which sent a letter supporting the tidal gates but said, "We want to make sure that all alternatives are fully evaluated for and optimized to mitigate against any adverse impacts of water quality." The state Department of Conservation, which needs to approve the project, did not return a request for comment.

Falt said preliminary analyses showed that the gates would not have as severe an impact on the bay's circulation as the Corps at first feared, but that it would do more intensive study. The agency will release its feasibility study in June and begin taking public comment at that time, Falt said. Neither the Corps, nor other entities, have committed to fund the project, and it is still years, and many steps, away from fruition. 

"You have to demolish this tunnel," MTA president Tom Prendergast told state lawmakers during a joint legislative budget hearing in Albany Thursday.

That means the tunnel needs to be taken down to the studs — or in this case the steel structure lining the tunnels. But because of the complexity of the work, Prendergast said the Canarsie Tube will need to be completely closed while it is being overhauled.

"Demolishing the concrete creates silica dust," he explained, "and from an environmental standpoint, for the customers and the employees and the workers, you have to protect them."

The tube, which was constructed in the 1920s, contains two tunnels (one eastbound, one westbound). It was one of eight subway tunnels to be flooded during Sandy, when it took on 7 million gallons of salty water. After the storm, it was closed for 11 days.

But unlike the other subway tunnels damaged during Sandy, the Canarsie Tube presents unique challenges. "It's the number of people impacted," Prendergast said, "and there are much fewer alternatives for them to utilize. That's what makes it different."

The MTA doesn't expect work to begin before late 2018 or early 2019. But Prendergast said the agency will start letting out contracts this year, because it's using federal money and a new Congress is coming in.

"If we don't commit those dollars this year," he said, "there's a likelihood that they could be snatched back up and used for other purposes."

The hearing answered numerous questions raised by angry Brooklynites during a public meeting last month. An MTA official present did not know when the repair work would begin and whether the closure could be limited to weekends — or even when the MTA would be able to answer those questions.

He said the agency was working on alternative transportation plans for L train riders, as well as ways to compress the work into as short a time as possible. But the duration of the Canarsie work will take "a number of months."

On average, 250,000 people a day take the L train under the East River, with a total of 400,000 people using the entire line.

You can see an MTA video of work on the Canarsie tube in the aftermath of Sandy, below.

No, not that wall. The city of Hoboken has been looking for a solution to prevent floods, like when the Hudson River poured into the city during Hurricane Sandy. And city officials thought they'd found a plan when they secured a $230 million grant to build a sea wall. But some residents aren't happy.

Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer talks about Hoboken's plans to protect the city from future flooding and addresses community opposition to the plans - some say a wall would ruin the views and the character of the city.

Remember that 13 month closure of the R train? The MTA says those repairs must be made to the L train tunnel, too. But word about that long-term closure leaked well before the agency made contingency plans and began community outreach. So a group called the L Train Coalition called their own meeting, and they weren't happy.

"We're going to kill our community if we allow this to happen," said Elaine Brodsky of the Greenpoint Chamber of Commerce.

"This is a tragedy in the making," said Assemblyman Joe Lentol.

"You will devastate the community," said Bushwick resident Thomas Dodd.

(Meanwhile, the real estate community is watching very closely.)

That might sound a little dramatic. But unlike the R train, the L is the only game in town for many parts of North Brooklyn.

"There's no duplication, there's no other parallel line we could take," said Taylor Erkkinen of The Brooklyn Kitchen. "The walk to the J/M/Z station is pretty significant, in some cases."

The MTA sent community liaison Andrew Inglesby to the meeting to listen to concerns. He quickly became a piñata.

Does the MTA have a timetable for the work? Could he say if it would it be weekends only, or a long-term outage? Could he say when the public would have that information?

His response: "Not at this time."

At that, Felice Kirby, one of the founders of the L Train Coalition, politely showed Ingelsby the door.

"We're not getting any answers, we're not getting any solid information," she said. "I don't think it's personal, I'm sure this gentleman is doing an excellent job of not telling us anything they don't want us to know."

A spokesman for the MTA, John McKay, said, "The MTA is looking for the best ways to mitigate the service disruptions and customer inconvenience that will result from this critical repair work. As we have made clear both prior to and at the meeting, we are committed to maintaining a dialogue with the affected communities as we analyze the options. As the process moves forward, we will continue to listen to ideas from our riders, local businesses and elected officials.”

New Jersey Public Radio's Matt Katz said Christie was faced with either returning to the campaign trail or managing storm response in his state — a complicated choice, considering the governor is running on his leadership in the wake of Sandy.

"First he got some flack for being noncommittal about returning home for the storm," Katz said. "He then came home, stayed in New Jersey for 40 hours, did a bunch of national and local TV interviews, and then he returned even as some places down the shore were dealing with major flooding."

Katz spoke with WNYC's All Things Considered host Jami Floyd.

Meanwhile, the Garden State barely met the minimum score to receive any funding, according to U.S. Housing Secretary Julián Castro. 

"New Jersey submitted a weaker application on several measures," Secretary Castro said in a conference call with reporters Thursday. "It received a score that was at the cut-off to receive funding."

New York City won $176,000,000 New York State won $35,800,000 New Jersey won $15,000,000

"In 30 days we'll be share with the state of New Jersey all of the specifics of the application," Castro said. "The scores that it received on each of the criteria and how it stacked up to others in the competition."

Castro said New Jersey received feedback several times to help improve its application. One weakness, he said, was the state's failure to tap into non-federal funds. By contrast, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has pledged $108 million of the city's own capital funds to contribute to its project, a series of berms, walls and levees around the bottom of Manhattan.

New Jersey officials expressed shock and anger — either at the state for failing to procure the funding or at HUD for failing to give it.

"The state owes an explanation," U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell wrote in a statement. "Maybe the governor did not want to open the state's coffers, but not leveraging state funding for these projects is foolish and put us at a disadvantage."

A spokesman for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Kevin Roberts, called the HUD decision, "beyond disappointing."

He added, "With this rejection, the federal government has walked away from a New Jersey project that it deemed worthy of $150 million in funding as recently as June of 2014. HUD’s decision to offer New Jersey such a limited sum is ludicrous given the substantial needs our residents still face." 

A total of 13 different states and cities got a total of $1 billion from the competition. Even Minot, North Dakota ($74.3 million), and Springfield, Mass. ($17 million), got larger awards.  

The first phase, from East 23rd Street down to Montgomery Street on the Lower East Side, is being covered by a $335 million federal grant announced two years ago. The second phase covers more waterfront (more than 2 miles compared to 1.5) and is about twice as costly ($608 million total). The latest federal grant will only cover part of its cost; the city is chipping in another $108 million, and is continuing to look for more revenue, according to spokeswoman Amy Spitalnick.

The tentative plan for the second phase, as outlined in the city’s grant application:

From Montgomery Street to the Financial District, a permanent flood wall under Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive, which is elevated at that point;   From the Financial District to approximately the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, a series of portable flood walls, which will only be set up when heavy storms are forecast; Around the tip of Manhattan through Battery Park, a levee – or earthen ridge; North from Battery Park through Battery Park City to North Moore Street in Tribeca, another set of temporary flood walls.

The latest grant, first reported in The New York Times and confirmed to WNYC by Sen. Charles Schumer’s office, comes from a $1 billion competitive program that HUD set up with Sandy aid money to reward the most innovative resiliency ideas from around the country. At the time, New York and New Jersey politicians objected that any Sandy-related money might end up in the hands of states not affected by the storm, but the region was later promised at least $181 million from it.