You own the Property and House, you take care of it, period !!!!!!!!

Whose butt do Acropolis and Sangonani believe they're blowing smoke to? The Feds could care less about a resolution introduced by two petty local politians. In my view, it's just something for them to brag about at election time, along the line of "We tried to get Fed, money to help you" I have to question, where do these people think fed money comes from? It comes from taxpayers, keep it simple, stupid.

That was your choice to live there...You had to know that at some point in time this type of storm would happen..Seems all everyone wants is a payout from the government. I'm so sick and tired of paying for everyone else..You folks need to step up..you can't afford to rebuild, sell you proberty and buy inland.!! It's not a tough concept to follow...All you do is "Want, want, want!!!"

The new FEMA maps and guidelines will not stand up for long. Think about it, this is not going to happen just in New Jersey, it's the whole country!
Look at South Florida and the Keys where most homes are cinder block walls on slabs. These types of homes cannot be raised, they will need to knocked down.
Any homeowner with a mortgage being forced to spend the $$ required will look at the bottom line and walk away from the home leaving it to the banks. Millions of homeowners will walk creating another banking meltdown.

What a joke these two guys are. An election is coming, so let's say something absurd for the benefit of the voters. Anyone who buys into this ploy is dumber than these two.

Really?? Really???
Yes I chose to live in my little beach bungalow on the water. Yes I have adequate flood insurance of 215,000. More than I needed. Insurance wants to pay me 95,000 for a home that was structurally damaged beyond repair. I cannot rebuild for that. Insurance settlements aren't paying anyone what they are due. So what are we as a community supposed to do? I know many people are walking away, we might have no choice to walk away. I believe the mayor knows this and he is trying to save his town. If people from shore acres, bay wood, cherry quay, bay harbor estates, sailors quay etc... Walk bc they cannot afford to fix their home due to insurance payouts or raise their home for that matter... What will that do to the tax base or the town. My neighborhood is a ghost town right now! Get in your car and drive these neighborhoods and then you might understand what they are trying to do. Brick was underwater... 5 foot ravaged my ranch I walked out with the clothes on my back and that was about all.

You decided to live at the shore,why now does everyone else have to pay for you to rebuild. This is one of the biggest problems our country has . People always have their hand out for something for FREE>

i bought my townhouse for 215 now itsworth 93,000 ...is it still fair that im payin for something that not the same value....no but thats what it is ...suck it up

We have been very lucky that we haven't been hit this hard before. I know alot of the homes destryed were first homes. But to those peole who want the taxpayers to pony up for your vacation home,don't hold your breathe.
To Michelle good point about values fo homes. My own home I bought for $319 nine years ago,it's now worht about 260.
Maybe we should not have allowed building in the areas that were hit the hardest.

To all you ignorate a holes. In a way I hope myself and all my neighbors walk away from the baywood,shore acres,ceded island, Cherryquay and the barrier island area and let it go back to nature as you all want. Because it won't be long till you all follow behind like the old coal mine towns. Your school taxes will sky rocket or your schools will just shut down and your kids will be bussed to Lakewood. A lot of the big chain stores inland will close due to lack of business. All the mom and pop stores will be doomed. You just plain and simple wouldn't be able to afford the taxes. these summer folks pay probably 50% of our taxes for stuff they don't use. Schools.sanatation(what 20 pickups a year). They don't get into our politics. Plus they spend a ton of money in our local stores and give our youths summer employment. Think about it from September to July that area is a depressing ghost town. I live there full time and love it now because a freak storm(like mount st. Hellen)happened why should I pay to raise. It's not my fault the bay is full of sand that now changed the tides and I don't feel you should either the Feds should. I don't here you bitching about gas,tolls,etc. going up to widen the parkway so you can get home from work on time. NO BECAUSE It BENIFITS YOU!!!

My wife and I live in Baywood year around...seriously folks, we pay our taxes, mortgage and flood insurance with the expectation that should we ever get flooded that the insurance that we have paid for years would cover the damage caused by a catastrophic flood...well we were flooded and we are not expecting FEMA, NJ, Ocean County or Brick to help us out...we just want a fair settlement from the insurance company so that we can rebuild our primary residence. If the floodmaps have changed that should be the responsibility of the insurance coverage to get our home back to what it was before the storm...including the elevation if so deemed by local permits. Its just plain common sense really...if that is part of the recovery then the insurance companies that have been collecting premiums all these years should now make it right without the games and slight of hand. We just want to go home. Its been over four months and we are stuck in neutral, with no end in sight.

The only role the government and tax payers should have here is to make sure that the insurance companies pay the claims to the insured. I feel sorry for anyone whose home was flooded out. I am sure your life stinks right now, but it is not the governments responsibility to bail you out.

I have friends that live on the water and are complaining that they have no money to raise or fix their houses. For the last 15 years they have been driving in Mercedes and riding jet skis and cruising around the bay in their 35 foot sea ray boat. It seems to me that they should have been saving some money for an emergency instad of living the high life and bragging about their luxuries. Let this be a lesson to all. Save your money for a rainy day. Dont live high and fancy while going paycheck to paycheck.

Everyone is biting there nails about the increased costs of living in brick&nj. As taxes rise and there is no way to supplement it but to take it out on us the residents why not follow California and many other states and legalize marijuana regulate and tax it just like alchohol & tobacco. As business week says the us as a whole would make over a 100 billion dollars in revenue a year( that's not chump change) and there's an estimated 25-60 million users. I am not a smoker but I read these articals and feel that nj is looking in the rearview mirror on these other states that are almost out of debt in only a few years. Or could it be that christie and obama and the head of FEMA are smoked up when they come up with these elevation maps ?? Along with these charity group leaders. I keep hearing about all the monies made from donations but haven't heard about anyone getting a dime. All I hear from friends and neighbors is "I just got fined for renovating so I have a place to live because I'm out of money". Now the township is kicking us why were down. They won't issue permits till we raised to compliance and can't make repairs so we have a place to live without permits WTF. Where are these charities so taxpayers don't have to foot the bill.

On the surface passing a resolution like this sounds great, but taking money from the government always has catches. Deed restrictions for example.

Ohh slippery slopes you sure like enjoying yourself on you so called friend toys. Sounds to me like someone's jealous. If its that much of a problem stop driving east and go west. I'm sure you will find someone else out there to use and say their your friend.

hey if the feds help the mayor raise his house i want the feds to fix my mortgage so my house value is the same worth as my house payment since it went way down since i bought it ...

I just reread this article. Why do we have to raise our homes?there are so many other options for instance. Why not dredge the bay deeper to hold more water. Put up a sea wall. Why raise float your home on a deck barge( there only 3' high)they do it down south. Why costly wood pickings use steel columns (much cheaper) the township has to research our options before going up to bat. If you dredge the bay then we don't have to hear these people whine that their tax monies are going to benifit the land owner.it will benifit us all and marine life.

It is very sad how some ppl are so ignorant.I live in Union Beach, a few blocks in from the water. My family has lived here for over 50 years and have never had water come into our homes and destroy everything we owned! That's pretty rude of you to say basically we knew it was coming.I am fully insured and unfortunately most ins co's are only paying 21% of the value of our flood policies.I cannot live in my home, it must come down but still have to pay my mortgage every month as many of our residents have to. I cannot afford to just walk away and start over. It would be great if I was able to save and have money for an emergency, but get serious, this is not an emergency, it is a natural disaster, huge difference! Who could afford to save a couple hundred thousand?? That's what I would need to save to start over.We help so many countries and unfortunately under my circumstances I absolutely do expect help from our government!It is a very scary thing to have to go thru being displaced with children and pets. Worrying if you will be able to sleep some place warm every night and be able to feed your children every day like many of our residents have to deal with everday! Those of you who can relate,my prayers go out to you, those of you who understand, thank you. As time goes on,I am learning that sometimes we don't have many options and need to ask for help.

Brick officials should be praised for doing something to head off what the new maps and premiums will do to the Shore, but they are focused on the wrong remedy to the wrong problem.

The problem is not getting money to raise homes, but avoiding the absurd insurance premiums driving people to raise homes. Government officials could better focus their immediate efforts on the more realistic goal of requiring FEMA to tell each policy owner what their current premium would be at the new elevations without subsidies that will be removed by Biggert-Waters. That would let everyone make informed decisions about who will be affected, and how badly.

As the number of hostile posts indicate, asking the Feds for $50,000 a house to raise every house at the Shore is probably not the best way to build the broad political support needed to get real relief. Most homeonwers don't want money to raise their houses: they need relief from the ABFE-driven premiums that, for most homes that did not sustain 50% damage even from Sandy, are not justified by loss experience and could be better protected at less expense by raising the dunes. We don't want a hand-out, we need FEMA to be less heavy-handed.

The alternate approach of relying on individual appeals of elevations scares me, as it plays to FEMA's strength on its home court. We need a common political remedy that will cap premiums at a reasonable level, at least for homes that have not suffered substantial damage.

The bay isn't a closed body of water...no matter how much they dredge it every tide cycle brings seawater in through the inlets in Barnegate and Manasquan...what is needed though is a better understanding of what Sandy was...it really was a perfect storm that hit our area at high tide...and like a noreaster...the strong NE winds as the hurricane made landfalll pushed a lot of water down the bay for hours and held it there...when the winds moved inland...it was like tipping a bathtub and huge amount of water came flowing up the bay and flooded our homes...this was a very very unusual set of circumstances...which might not happen again in our lifetimes. Everyone needs to calm down especially FEMA and just try to be logical in the solution and real risk of this happening again...lets face it... no one can predict if this will ever happen again.

The thing is, many of these homes on the bay do not NEED to be raised!

Even with Sandy, a 500 year event, they did not get water or high velocity waves.

Now they are in a "new zone" to correct the bad calculations of the 80's and need to raise their homes? Gimme a break! I won't be spending $135k to someday get a $25k payout if I'm lucky. The Selective Flood people can suck-it!

What they really need to do is build dunes and floodwalls so that the bay does not flood again, not ask thousands of home owners to raise their homes "just in case" they got the flood maps right this time. No thanks guys! You had your chance to get it right the first time.

Denisefromub,squaderedyouth,missing brick I agree and your post make the most sense. Mark wauben I agree to most except the bay dredging part the bay is full of sand the same as if u put buckets of sand in your bathtub your tub(the bay) holds the same amount of water per tide cycle now add all that beach sand which made the bay extremely shallow bring in high tide the only place for the water to go is up and in my yard. So if u dredge deeper yes the lagoons will go lower at low tide and should maintain low tide hight at high tide. But I am not and army cor engineer. But I do agree it was the perfect storm I stayed till 9:15 pm when I seem the roof of a house go down my lagoon like a sanami and the smoke from the fires on the barrier island filled my house. I bailed. Lucky to be here.

feds bought 75% for outright buyout in ny. only 30 k here?

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/staten_island/sandy_buyoutoffer_mzOVEh3EXLSz4bG7P1nFbM

There is NO money !

The Mayor and Governor both said there will be plenty of money to raise our homes with the CDBG grant money and HMG money. Were they lying to us? What else have they been lying about? AshBritt & Gilmore?

Brick will not become a ghost town. You buy when there is blood in the streets. I can assure you real estate investors ate waiting to scoop up your properties for pennies On the dollar. My condolences to all those suffering.

Don't worry Acropolis and his cronies will cook up some sort of scheme to fleece the taxpayer's yet again, while lining their pockets. Hopefully the Greedy Seniors that don't want to fund schools, will wise up and not fall for another scam like raising taxes or lose garbage pickup.

How stupid are they. I can't afford to live on the water yet my tax dollars should assist those who can. If they want to live there let the homeowners foot the bill or move inland. Sorry my tax dollars can be better spent elsewhere. Don't need to give someone a nice home. Let those who get paid medical write a check considering they were not taking it. Come on Jim be a man. Stand up and be a man.

Then will come the age old argument, "Hey, our tax dollars built these homes back up now we want to fish n crab from your backyard". Then just like the beach's the home owners will have to have an easement so any ole stranger can walk in your back yard to enjoy what we ALL paid for along the bay front. There is nothing free when you take what the fed Gov't gives out. And not for nothin but I believe it's a conflict of interest to have Sangiovanni on this panel beings his own home was involved in the devistation. Well good luck either way to those effected, I wish you all the best in the end. (God Bless) !!!

Jealousy will get u no where. We on the water would help our community if you needed it. Most of us on the water are retired or seasonal owners we support ur schools when we don't have any kids in the system. If you don't want to help us the cut out school tax from us who don't have kids or aren't full timers. Tit for tat. I'm game for that. Raise my tax for me and my neighbors to raise leave you in landers out of it then remove school taxes from us and any other taxes for thing we don't use and just tax us for the 3 months out of the year my friends and neighbor are hear. Then put toll booths up to get to the coast for you ( basically draw a lie) since you want to segregate our town. I NEVER THOUGHT BRICK WOULD BE LIKE THIS. That's why I moved hear 10 years ago from up north to get away from ignorant aholes like you!!!!!!

I work in Insurance and DEAL with this DAILY; first of ALL I want to say ICC is NOT going to give each and every individual that had flood insurance 30,000 to raze their homes, secondly not all flood policy holders pay into the ICC fund, and third if you read the guidelines in the ICC portion of the policy it states that an amount UP TO 30,000 could be given to one insured. They will all be reviewed on a case by case basis

I do not feel sorry for those who lost their vacation homes,sorry,no more freebies from the rest of us taxpayers!!!!!!

This is not just effecting the beach or bay front houses. I am high and dry and had no damage at all with Sandy and I am now in a V flood zone. Why should I have to raise my house? This whole thing is crazy. I hope the town can fight it or we will all by forced out.

@jms. We were a very fortunate street on the river and not one house suffered water damage and now we are in a v zone- frustrating.

@Pam.. I am sure it is frustrating; but keep in mind; none of these maps are set in stone; many changes still to come before anything is finalized for August, which is what they are telling us in the insurance industry.. maybe there still is hope, but if you are a spit away from the water; it's probably for the best anyway... what I don't understand is that they are telling everyone to be from 10 up to 15 feet in the air; now we will have a WIND issue.. ugh

@jms. Thanks. We are keeping fingers crossed. Yes the only damage we had was wind because we are high. Imagine if we are up ten more feet. The next storm we will blow away!

@Julles 51
If you were aiming your comment at me, you're talking through your anus along with Art. I am not on any type of govt. dole, food stamps, unemployment or housing subsidy. My income is my business, not yours! I have worked on coastal restoration from TX through NY for more than 40 yrs. and know better than to try to impress superficial friends and aquaintences with my beach home, leased cars and the rest of the BS. You chose to buy or build on the beach, live with it. If you were in NC and lost your beach house to a storm you would not be allowed to rebuild.

@ Above Comments ...I think the Mayor and Joe trying to get more help for the recovery from Sandy is at least a chance worth taking and you don't know until you try ..At least there not sitting back and waiting for help they keep asking for more options Thank You Mayor and Joe...

Acropolis and Sangonani are true comedians. Maybe their hiring at one of the comedy clubs.

Most hilarious comments I've head in quite some time...LOL

Go to STOP FEMA NOW (www.stopfemanow.com) Join the group and the fight to prevent FEMA from doing something totally ridiculous!!
Go to Save Our New Jersey Communities also.
Between both groups WE MUST STOP FEMA!!!
I DO NOT agree with FEMA; the new V zone's are WRONG!!!
As many have said; it was bad enough to deal with the storm (I stayed at my home and it was flooded) and then the reconstruction issues and then the insurance issues and then FEMA and now the new flood maps. When is it going to end???
Everyone in this country will be financially hurt by the new FEMA maps.
This isn't just a NJ problem, it affects all parts of the country. This isn't just a shore community or water front issue; everyone will pay more if the water front areas can't sell or must destroy perfectly good homes.
Don't allow this to happen.
Don't allow the government to ruin your retirement plans.
Like most people, your home is your investment for retirement (along w/ pension, 401k etc...); GET INVOLVED. Protect yourselves and don't allow this to happen WITHOUT A FIGHT!!! This is your home and home for your children; STOP FEMA NOW!!!!

Call the NJ senators:

Senator Lautenberg (202) 224-3224
Senator Menendez (202) 224-4744

Request that they get with FEMA and appeal the redicilious maps and proposed insurance regulations.
I've called both senators.
I've emailed both senators.
If you have been affected get involved.

The two Council members residing on the water are in direct conflict when voting on any resolutions involving their property.