Sandy storm victims react to proposed home buyout

(CBS News) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - One hundred days ago, the Northeast was hit by a left hook from superstorm Sandy.

This week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed spending $400 million to buy up and demolish thousands of those homes, so the property can be turned back into wetlands.

Homeowners have mixed feelings about the proposal.

For 11 years, Joe Monte worked two jobs and spent weekends renovating his Staten Island home. Weeks after he finished last fall, superstorm Sandy swept eight feet of water inside.

"I came into the house with paper towels and some Fantastic, and I stood in the middle of the room and called my wife and I told my wife, 'There's nothing to clean here, there's nothing to do. It's done,'" Monte said.

A picture of a house heavily damaged by superstorm Sandy on Staten Island, 100 days after the storm hit.

/ CBS News

Monte welcomes Cuomo's proposal to buy up properties like his in flood-prone areas.

"This isn't my dream, the poison that's in this home, the destruction that took this neighborhood. How could you even stay here?" he said. "How could you even live in this neighborhood?"

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But about 30 miles away in Long Beach, N.Y., Fran Adelson plans to stay and rebuild. She, too, lost almost everything in the storm.

"We live here. This is where our homes are, this is where our children were raised, this is where our families are, this is where the businesses that we go to are," she said.

Fran Adelson

/ CBS News

She believes the governor should be looking at ways to help people stay in their communities.

"We would rather see Cuomo spend the money on helping us rebuild than offering to buy people's property," Adelson said.

But Joe Monte says he's had enough. He's walking away.

"I hate that I lost neighbors in my neighborhood," he said. "Three people died in this neighborhood. I hate everything about it. I could never come back here ever again."

Gov. Cuomo's buyout proposal still has to be approved by the federal government. If it is approved, the governor's office says they won't force people to sell their property -- but those who do decide to stay would be offered grants to rebuild their homes.

[disinterested-3rd-party]

They live in a flood plain, yet taxpayer money is given away to them to rebuild. Make it a loan to be repaid to the taxpayers, and lets see how long they insist on living in a flood plain.

[maiingan]

Everyone has a stake in this issue. Even if surge victims are so rich they can self-insure, the natural resources used for rebuilding come from the common stock on Earth; consumption helps drive prices up for everyone. Repeat victimization followed by repeat rebuilding is wasteful, expensive - and selfish. Experience tells us impartially, through mapped events and their marks on the land and soil, where no rebuilding should be allowed. Buyouts should be welcomed. No one in these flood-prone areas should be allowed to rebuild in the same place - let alone get a grant! I've let my Congressperson know in no uncertain terms these same views, and they're based on what I learned in college, not news media. I also shared them with Gov. Cuomo months ago. I got no reply, but maybe smething is getting through. I'd like to help design new communities for groups of neighbors being displaced.

[sabniz]

yep, it's much cheaper and more practical to buy out those houses and tear them down for good, than keep them and at next storm or next next storm spend billions more to aid those flooding areas.

it's a good idea and they should do it.

[Meezermom1951]

Staten Island is the world's largest garbage dump!! It is primarily a land fill so it was a lot of wetlands to begin with. Just tossing billions of tons of garbage down and filling it up does not make it a suitable place to live.....All this was done to make it bigger and more stable. Didn't work. There are a lot of nice areas but there are a lot of areas that do need to go back to wetlands, just like should have happened in New Orleans. Billions poured into that mess and it is still a mess... Return things to what they were.

[rwsmith29456]

You don't want that land, it's all broken. I'll buy it from you. Yeah, right.