New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Sen. Chuck Schumer praised the Federal Emergency Management Agency for authorizing $3 billion in federal funding to repair and protect city housing developments damaged by Superstorm Sandy.

It is the largest single block grant in the agency’s history.

The money will used at 33 developments damaged by the 2012 storm.

Many of those suffered basement flooding which damaged boilers and electrical and mechanical equipment, leaving some buildings without heat or power for weeks.

De Blasio called the grant “transcendent” during a Tuesday news conference in a hard-hit Brooklyn neighborhood.

Repair work at the housing projects will begin this summer and will take between 18 – 36 months, de Blasio said. A development in Coney Island will be the first to undergo the overhaul.

(AP)