In blunt and sometimes profane language, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is promising to build a continuous dune along his state’s entire barrier island beach front.
Homeowners on Plum Island, Massachusetts, have the state’s okay to move sand around in a last-ditch effort to save their houses from the ocean. For now.
Lumber interests are pushing to get North Carolina off the LEED bandwagon.
Federal funds (and sand) are flowing in Delaware, where the Corps of Engineers is ready to put the beaches back the way they were before Sandy — and then some.
Increased premiums included in last year’s flood insurance reform package are starting to make waves in coastal states.
Federal authorities have approved hundreds of millions of dollars of funding to help New York State buy out homeowners in threatened shore areas. But most storm victims would rather rebuild.
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The oil stopped flowing two years ago. Much of the money hasn’t started flowing yet. And the Gulf Coast, some reports say, is still hurting from the effects of BP’s disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform blowout.
Homeowners in Louisiana’s fragile delta are living outside the Federal levee system — and with FEMA policy changing, they’re worried about the future.
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The Texas legislature is taking on a reform effort for the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, the state’s troubled insurance pool for high-risk coastal houses.
Richard Schifter’s house-with-a-view sits on a beautiful Nantucket bluff. But the ocean isn’t bluffing — and now the cliff is crumbling under Schifter’s footings. So Schifter is hedging his investment and moving the giant house back from the edge of destruction — swimming pool and all.
On the New Jersey shore, well-off beachfront owners are fighting dune construction by public authorities. In New York, the situation is reversed: big-house owners are building their own dunes, over the objections of other townsfolk. The fight is less about the view than about the question: Who owns...
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FEMA is set to revise its recently released “advisory” flood zone maps for Staten Island, the agency has told local leaders. Many areas will change from V zones to A zones. Velocity zones in New Jersey, already incorporated into some towns’ zoning rules, may also shrink.
Battered by hurricanes and nor’easters, N.C. 12—the Outer Banks’ fragile lifeline—is on life support.
An Inspector General report says more than half a billion dollars in Hurricane Katrina relief money may have been misspent. Most Katrina victims who were awarded $30,000 apiece to elevate their houses never documented that the work was done.
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Congress authorized funding for Hurricane Sandy emergency relief in January. But the actual money hasn’t started flowing yet.
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An engineer investigating flood insurance claims sheds light on the mechanisms of damage.
Carelessness helped create Florida’s Chinese drywall disaster. Cleaning it up is a job for a very careful builder.
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From small-time scams to major misappropriation of relief money, government is on the lookout for crooked use of rebuilding funds.
In the Barnegat Bay, side-scanning sonar and “picker” boats are the tools for a tedious cleanup.
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After a statewide tour, homebuilding market analyst Lesley Deutch reports: “Florida is on fire.”