Superstorm Sandy: Brooklyn's Recovery 18 Months Later
NICK POWELL
On a balmy mid-July day, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio stood on a makeshift black stage on a quiet residential street in Canarsie flanked by a host of legislators and his Hurricane Sandy Recovery team. Behind him several construction workers were in action repairing the roof of a modest brick row home.
The building’s owner Tonyelle Jobity, a short African-American woman with closely cropped bleach-blond hair was also on the dais. Jobity had lived in the house for over 10 years when Sandy swept through the neighborhood in October 2012, and the surging water from nearby Jamaica Bay rose as high as the hoods of the sedans parked on the street, spilling over into Jobity’s downward sloped driveway and flooding her basement. At the same time, the deluge of rain and sweeping gusts of wind punctured her roof.
Jobity emptied her savings account and maxed out her credit cards to pay for as many repairs as she could afford so at least her house would be in livable enough shape for her to stay in it. Meanwhile, she applied for the city’s Build it Back program, the housing recovery initiative instituted by the Bloomberg administration to get Sandy victims back on their feet and restore their damaged property.
For Jobity and thousands of other New Yorkers affected by the storm, Build it Back moved at a maddeningly slow pace getting victims the help they needed. Jobity waited months before she saw a single reimbursement check for the work she had paid for, never mind getting the rest of her house fixed.
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