Obama declares Bergen County disaster area, allowing some areas to receive aidThursday, November 1, 2012 Last updated: Thursday November 1, 2012, 2:58 PM
BY MONSY ALVARADO
STAFF WRITER
The Record
Bergen County has been added to President Obama’s major disaster declaration, allowing areas impacted by Sandy to receive federal aid as they restore storm ravaged homes and businesses, U. S. Bill Pascrell announced Thursday.
High winds from Hurricane Sandy felled trees across the state, like this one in River Edge, Wednesday, Oct. 31. “I thank President Obama for amending his original federal disaster declaration as a result of Superstorm Sandy to now include Bergen County," said Rep. Pascrell, who submitted a letter of support to President Obama requesting federal assistance in Bergen County. "Bergen County was one of the hardest hit regions in northern New Jersey, with many victims still without power or access to their homes due to extraordinary flooding in the region.”
Passaic County has not been added to the list, said Tom Pietrykoski, Pascrell’s spokesman.
“We will continue to push for Passaic to be added,’’ he said.
Days after the Sandy devastated the area, getting into New York City Thursday morning was a nightmare and getting gas was nearly impossible. And most North Jersey residents who went to bed without power still didn’t have any in the morning. More supermarkets began to reopen, but ice and other necessities are likely to remain scarce.
The only bright spot Thursday morning was an announcement by NBC Universal that it will broadcast a one-hour telethon and concert Friday night to benefit Hurricane Sandy relief operations. Among those scheduled to perform are Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi and Billy Joel. The morning show’s co-host Matt Lauer will be the host. But a lot of North Jersey residents without power won’t be able to watch it.
More motorists were on the roads, and backups at the Lincoln Tunnel and George Washington Bridge, which extended onto I95 and 80 into Teaneck were reported at rush hour. Hundreds of cars made their way to area gas stations and waited to fuel up along Routes 17, 46, 4, and 3 as well as the Garden State Parkway, in some cases exacerbating traffic jams. Even a closed Sunoco station on Route 3 westbound drew drivers, who waited in their cars in the station’s parking lot, and along the highway in anticipation of a gasoline delivery.
Drivers from New Jersey are facing hour-plus delays to Manhattan. Lincoln Tunnel approaches backed up past the Turnpike Exit 16 toll booths beyond the western spur entrance to the roadway on Route 3. Motorists using the George Washington Bridge will have similar delays, police from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Wednesday that East River bridges and the Lincoln Tunnel will be restricted to vehicles carrying at least three occupants from 6 a.m. to midnight today. A checkpoint at the George Washington Bridge was put up by the New York Police Department by mistake, tweeted Howard Glaser, director of operations for the state of New York and an adviser to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Public Service & Electric Co., the state’s largest utility, reported that about 781,000 of its customers were still without power., a decrease from the 818,000 it said were in the dark Wednesday night. Fran Sullivan, a spokesman for the utility, said at the height of the outages, 1.7 million customers were without power, a number that has been recently revised after assessing damage and additional customers reporting their service was impacted. The utility forecasts that the majority of impacted customers will be restored within the next seven to 10 days.
Sullivan said crews continue to work through the night to remove trees, fix downed power lines, and clean substations.
Gov. Chris Christe is scheduled to be in Moonachie at 3 p.m. today to tour the storm damage and flooding, before visiting with first responders and volunteers at Volunteer Headquarters on Moonachie Avenue. The governor will also hold a briefing afterward.
Moonachie and neighboring Little Ferry were inundated with several feet of water after a massive tidal surge overwhelmed the Meadowlands flood control systems, propelling the Hackensack River to spill into the low lying communities. Rescue teams had to evacuate 820 residents in both communities, according to information posted on the Little Ferry’s Facebook page.
Construction code officials from towns across Bergen County are expected to fan out and inspect houses in Little Ferry and Moonachie that received the most water, to determine whether they are safe to live in, said Jeanne Baratta, spokesperson for Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan.
Displaced homeowners wondered when they will be able to go home and get back to normalcy.
When more than six feet of water rushed into the Little Ferry home of Caren Remsa in the early morning hours Tuesday, she grabbed a change of clothes and fled. She was taken to a county shelter by first responders that night, and since then has been staying at a friend’s house in Old Tappan.
On Wednesday, she entered her home on Sabina Street, and found nine feet of water in her basement. It filled her daughter’s bedroom, and surrounded her water heater, clothes washer and dryer. Everything was destroyed, she said.
Remsa, an Englewood Hospital nurse, returned this morning and began to try and dry out.
“It’s horrible, it’s not going to be livable for months, months, and months,” she said.
The lifelong Little Ferry resident said when Irene battered the region last year, only eight inches seeped into her Cape. Now she’ll have to figure out what to do to get her home back.
Menendez and Senator Frank R. Lautenberg announced Thursday that the federal government will cover 100 percent, instead of the standard 75 percent, of the costs of emergency power and public transportation expenses through Nov. 9 in eight of the New Jersey counties covered under the federal disaster declaration. They said the funds will help in the cleanup and recovery effort.
The U.S. Department of Labor also announced that it had approved a request by Christie for areas impacted by the storm to qualify for Disaster Unemployment Assistance. The program is available for people, in and around portions of New Jersey that were declared a federal disaster area, who were living or working in the counties affected at the time of the disaster, and who are unemployed as a direct result of the damages caused by the storm.
Another day without working refrigerators, televisions, and lights had some town officials and residents in Bergen and Passaic county frustrated.
In Cresskill, most of the town is out of power and could be for another week. Borough officials complained that they couldn’t get through Orange and Rockland Utilities, the town’s service provider, to find out when service will resume. Councilwoman Kathy Savas blamed the delay on a substation of Con Ed which was disabled and the fact that the utility company has to take care of customers in Brooklyn and other cities in addition to Northern New Jersey.
Cleanups continued throughout the county, where large trash bins were placed along streets most devastated by the storms. First responders also continued to collect donations for those impacted by the floods.
In Lyndhurst, the Police Department sent out an announcement asking for bleach and cleaning product donations for affected residents .
School children in Ho-Ho-Kus, Paramus, Rochelle Park, Maywood and other communities remained at home, unable to go to schools plagued by the massive outage. The New Jersey Teachers Education Association canceled its two day teachers’ conference scheduled for next week in Atlantic City. The NJEA is the state’s largest teachers’ union.
The Bergen County Courthouse remained closed Thursday.
Newark Liberty International, John F. Kennedy, and La Guardia airports were open but with limited service. Travelers were urged to call airlines and check their flight status before going to the airport.
Staff Writer Deena Yellin, Tariq Zehawi and Shawn Boburg contributed to this article, which contains information from wire services.
