Report: 919 Ocean City Homes Sustained Major Sandy Damage

The first town-by-town data reporting damage from Superstorm Sandy shows that 919 homes in Ocean City sustained major or severe damage, according to njspotlight.com.

Ocean City was not hit as hard as some towns in Ocean and Monmouth counties. Toms River had the largest number of homes damaged, the report finds. The data provided by the state Department of Community Affairs found that 8,800 residences in Toms River were damaged — 1,000 severely.

In Ocean City:

• 919 total homes were reportedly damaged — 821 had major damage ($8,000 to $28,800) and 107 had severe damage (more than $28,800).
• There were 486 total rental units with damage — 321 minor; 146 major; 13 severe.
• 1,209 businesses were impacted.

See NJ Spotlight's "Interactive Map: Assessing Damage From Superstorm Sandy."

The data notes that nearly 87,000 housing units were damaged statewide, about 12,500 of those were either destroyed or sustained major damage. At least 1,000 residences were damaged in 24 municipalities in seven counties. Nearly 400,000 businesses were impacted, as well.

The DCA released its action plan for spending billions of dollars in Community Block Grant Disaster Recover funds on Tuesday. The initial phase will provide $1.8 billion to help more than 20,000 homeowners, 5,000 renters, 10,000 businesses, as well as municipalities impacted by the storm.

“This plan puts into motion the specific actions we’ve been designing to get relief out as quickly as possible to our Sandy-impacted homeowners and businesses – to reconstruct, rehabilitate and elevate homes, and to get over hurdles for our small businesses to get up and running again,” Gov. Chris Christie said.

More than 50 percent of the funding will be dedicated to low-to-moderate-income households. Additionally, 80 percent of the funds will be dedicated to the nine most heavily impacted counties in the state, which includes Atlantic, Bergen, Cape May, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean and Union.

The Action Plan has been submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for approval. Once approved, the state will provide a detailed outline to guide spending.

“These programs have been carefully, but quickly designed to fill the unmet needs faced by our residents to rebuild in a safer, more enduring way, to strengthen our impacted local economies going into this summer, and to help preserve the unique character of our shore communities as we’ve known them,” Christie said.

To view the Action Plan, visit the NJ Department of Community Affairs’ website at www.nj.gov/dca.

See NJ Spotlight's "Interactive Map: Sandy's Monetary Damages."