Photo Courtesy of Assemblywoman Pheffer Amato’s Office
The working group convened by Pheffer Amato will mark the five-year anniversary of Superstorm Sandy with a list of legislative recommendations for the National Flood Insurance Program.
By Forum Staff
A working group convened by Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato (D-Howard Beach) will mark the five-year anniversary of Superstorm Sandy later this month with a list of legislative recommendations for the National Flood Insurance Program, which is slated to expire on Dec. 8, Pheffer Amato announced on Tuesday.
The Flood Insurance Reform Advisory Group is composed of stakeholders from impacted communities in south Queens, as well as representatives of U.S. Rep. Greg Meeks (D-Jamaica) and Borough President Melinda Katz.
According to the assemblywoman, NFIP reauthorization was already slated to be one of three major legislative items of the current session of Congress before Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria made securing America’s floodplain a top priority.
Pheffer Amato noted that Sandy was one of the earliest contemporary “super-storms,” and the successes and failures of the City and State during the recovery period have been used as case studies for how America must address the flooding crisis from here on out.
“The rest of the country is, unfortunately, about to experience some of the five-year horror show we went through – red tape, bureaucracy, and blatant exploitation,” Pheffer Amato said. “But we did come out stronger, with a paramount desire to protect others from the worst and least-necessary shocks. There’s no one better than a Sandy survivor to bring a list of important ‘to dos’ to a nation now grappling with these issues every year. And there’s no more impactful place to weigh in than on NFIP reauthorization. I want to thank this incredible team for their work to put our hard-won experience to paper, and I’m grateful to our representatives in DC for bringing us in to the national conversation.”
Pheffer Amato also pointed out that more than half of all Americans live in a county adjacent to coastline, and climate scientists expect flooding issues to worsen worldwide over the next several decades, making legislative steps taken in the near future potentially decisive to the success or failure of securing the floodplain.
“Insurance shapes the whole landscape of resiliency and recovery,” the assemblywoman added. “That’s why I convened this working group. Everyone on this team rolled up their
