January 2013 Table of Contents

Rebuilding New Jersey and New York shore communities will take years. But the fight over the insurance money could last even longer. Read more

University of Florida researchers are shedding new light on the strength benefits (and moisture risks) of closed-cell spray-foam applied to the underside of roof sheathing. Read more

Florida is the slowest of the so-called “sand states” to emerge from the housing recession. One reason is the sluggish pace of court action on foreclosures. Read more

Ray Nagin, who was the mayor of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, has been indicted by federal prosecutors for alleged corruption during his term as mayor. Read more

More than a hundred houses in Point Pleasant, N.J., were flooded by Hurricane Sandy. But now the town is fighting new FEMA flood maps that place much of the town in the “V Zone.” Read more

A personal hardship is not enough to justify enclosed living space to be allowed below the flood elevation, Monroe County, Fla., commissioners ruled in early January. The reason: FEMA has advised the county that permitting construction below the flood line jeopardizes the whole county’s access to flood insurance. Read more

Superstorm Sandy caused sewage backups and overflows along hundreds of miles of U.S. coastline. But the sewage overflow problem in the affected areas is not occasional — it’s chronic. Read more

Hard-hit Jersey Shore towns are re-opening, and the inhabitants are trickling back. But for many sections of the shore, the devastation is discouraging, and progress is slow. Read more

Nearly a score of nuclear power plants along the Atlantic Coast were in Superstorm Sandy’s projected track. Nothing happened. Read more

Superstorm Sandy’s floodwaters “pushed around” some “highly toxic stuff” — but so far, testing shows that exposures for cleanup workers don’t exceed OSHA workplace limits. Read more

The Moreland Commission has recommended that New York scrap the public authority and establish a new structure for electric utility service in the million-household Nassau and Suffolk County market. Read more

Ten percent of the 948,540 households in New York’s Suffolk and Nassau counties were hit by Sandy flooding, and 38,189 structures suffered damage greater than 50% of their value, FEMA has told Long Island’s Newsday. Read more

Educational sessions at the JLC Live conference will cover topics of special interest to coastal builders and remodelers. Read more

Congress has passed a bill that limits the amount of sulfur permissible in wallboard products. Read more

South Carolina’s upcoming legislative session could feature a battle over funding for highway and bridge construction and maintenance. Read more

Homeowner’s insurance — as homeowners sometimes learn too late — does not cover losses caused by a hurricane storm surge. Read more

Authorities may come to a final decision this month about new design values for Southern Pine lumber. Read more

The Mississippi Delta region of Louisiana is experiencing a combination of rising seas and subsiding land. The result: shorelines are sinking into the ocean. Read more

Homeowners with no flood insurance who received direct aid payments from FEMA to fix flood damage from Sandy won’t get any help next time, the agency says — unless they buy insurance coverage from the National Flood Insurance Program. Read more

Without an emergency appropriation from Congress, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)’s cash reserves will run out next week. Read more

For anyone who would like to view the storm’s impacts from an aerial perspective, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has provided a web resource. Read more

The House of Representatives recessed on Wednesday without acting on emergency aid for the victims of Superstorm Sandy. Read more

For one Queens, NY family recovering from Hurricane Sandy, Christmas arrived on schedule — if only as a quiet, low-key version of the usual raucous celebration. Read more