Storm Chronicles - Four Long Years Later

Don't get me wrong.

I'm grateful for the money I received from the state's Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation Superstorm Sandy recovery program.

Without it, there would be no hope of returning to my Bayville home. There would have been no funds to elevate the house, which had to be gutted to the crawl space after the Oct. 29, 2012 storm.

The house would have been put up for sale for a pittance. I doubt too many people would want to buy it, knowing it had to be elevated.

An elderly friend sold her house basically for the lot right after Sandy. She didn't have the strength to go through the funding and elevation process. She sold it for $100,000, in a neighborhood where it would have sold for much more if it were intact. She moved to Missouri and died the following year.

Another neighbor up the street stood and cried last week as she watched a contractor bulldoze the home she and her family had lived in for years. Now it's a pile of moldy rubble. You have to look past the rubble to the two ivory wrought iron chairs, still perched on their dock, to see that it was once a home.

My house finally was lifted over the summer and early fall. It's now higher and safer. We just can't live in it yet.

If you live in Berkeley Township and are a RREM recipient still in the process of rebuilding, you need to know that Berkeley has waived many of the fees associated with rebuilding. You don't have to pay for the building permit. You don't have to pay for the hefty Berkeley Township Sewerage Authority reconnection fee, as long as you provide the RREM paperwork to prove it.

This is important, because not a lot of people know these township waivers exist. I was in the building department in Town Hall several months ago and was told I would have to pay for the building permit fee.

The only reason I wasn't worried was because I was at a Township Council meeting earlier this year when the council voted to extend fee waivers for residents still in the RREM program and still trying to rebuild. I e-mailed Mayor Carmen F. Amato Jr., who confirmed the waivers.

But I had to explain to the staff in the construction office the fee was waived. They didn't seem to be aware of it, or if they were, they didn't tell me.

One of my neighbors came into the office and overheard the conversation. He is in the RREM program too and paid the fee because no one in the office told him he didn't have to. To say he was surprised and angry because he had paid it would be an understatement. He also paid a reconnection fee to the Berkeley Township Sewerage Authority when he didn't have to.

So make sure you check before you whip out your money. You may paying for township fees when you don't have to.

The 42-year-old gas pipes - alarmingly rusted and pitted - have been replaced. We are getting close to the point where utility reconnections will be made. That means being put on a waiting list and waiting for them to come and reconnect.

But RREM makes things difficult. They hold the last of your funds - called retainage - until you have proved all the work was done. I understand the reasoning behind this - fraud.

But when you need your entire grant to finish the work, it doesn't help. I will have to pilfer my I.R.A. - and there's not much to it - to pay for the asbestos abatement. It seems back in the early 70s, gypsum wallboard (Sheetrock) was taped with spackle with a small percentage of asbestos in the caulking.

It's not loose, it's not friable. But it has to come out. I'll find out later when I check with some companies what exactly has to be done.

I hope it doesn't involve ripping all the sheetrock from four feet down from the ceiling and the knotty pine paneling that was saved from the storm. I'll find out soon enough.

And if you don't do the asbestos abatement, RREM subtracts what it would have cost from your grant. For me, that would be $6,000.

I moved out on a torrid July day. The moving guys, dripping with sweat, certainly earned their money.

Now it's almost Halloween. Most of the foliage is past peak. And I'm still in my rental home.

What I thought would be relatively simple tasks like getting the utilities hooked back up aren't. You have to notify them in advance that you would like them turned back on. Then you have to wait - the standard seems to be 10 to 15 business days - until they let you know. You have to pay non-township reconnection fees, which also eats into your RREM grant.

If there is one thing all Sandy victims have in common, it's this. Fatigue.

I think I will go take a nap.

by Patricia A. Miller

Image: Patricia A. Miller