Assemblyman Pete Lopez: Flood Recovery A Difficult And Emotional Issue – Strengthening Community Development For Future Events Must Be Part Of The Conversation

A Statement from Assemblyman Pete Lopez (R,C,I-Schoharie)

August 5, 2013

We continue to celebrate homes, businesses and public structures as they are restored. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of many public and private efforts.

Yet, the majority of these are being rebuilt as they were before the floods. Only a small handful has been modified to resist future storm events or have been relocated.

In November of 2011, on the heels of Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee, I was part of a frank discussion with federal, state and local officials and residents in Prattsville about continued efforts to help communities recover from storm events.

In that conversation, everyone acknowledged the need to do something different from the practice of simply coming in and spending billions of dollars to rebuild communities as they existed prior to the event. The frank realization was that efforts needed to be focused on building differently to help them withstand future storm events.

This is an emotional issue, and is a very real challenge for all those who continue to rebuild from the devastation of recent natural disasters.

From my direct experience working to rebuild from Irene, Lee and Sandy, some people will say, “We don’t want you to build in the flood plain. You should only be encouraging investment and development on higher grounds.” Others will say, “You can’t walk away from the villages and hamlets in the flood plain – you can’t abandon them.”

In my opinion, the answer has to be a little bit of both. Just as important, it has to be a local decision, backed up with resources from the state and federal governments.

I’m pleased that the Governor has learned from our collective experience with recent storms and is engaging the community on this critical issue.

Recently, my staff and I were in a day-long session hosted by Governor Andrew Cuomo in an effort to provide a statewide focus on how we improve the ability of our communities to withstand future natural disasters. This event, which highlighted the Community Redevelopment Zone Program (CRZ), brought hundreds and hundreds of people from across the state, who have been involved with storm recovery, to focus on rebuilding our communities differently: to meet these future challenges.

Our goal through the CRZ program, and the many other initiatives my staff and I have been part of through on-going recovery, is to bring resources and options to the affected communities, making them the architects of their own future and empowering them to make critical decisions in a way that they think best suits their respective communities.

The forum was a starting point of a very real conversation that has to occur in all of our flood- and storm-damaged communities.

As emotional and challenging as it is, we must continue to engage on this issue.

Our continued responsibility at the state level will be to look at existing programs and funding sources and recast them in a way that reinforces these goals, even as we creatively engage individual communities to help them chart their own course.

I commend the Governor and his team for his attention to flood recovery issues, and I will continue my dedicated efforts to helping our neighbors rebuild and move forward.

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