Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the damage caused to the state from Tropical Storm Irene will total $1 billion.
“The damage we have sustained in significant,” Cuomo said Wednesday in Prattsville. “And sometimes the bottom line is the bottom line and we need help on the economics.”
Cuomo has been with the Federal Emergency Management Agency touring upstate New York’s flood ravaged areas.
Torrential downpours left a mess of mangled homes and destroyed bridges around Prattsville.
“Over 600 homes destroyed, six towns inundated, 150 major highways have been damaged, 22 state bridges have been closed,” Cuomo said with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and FEMA director Craig Fugate.
The governor said the damage in upstate New York is much worse than the damage the New York City and Long Island area.
“The Mid-Hudson, the Catskills the North Country, paid a terrible, terrible price,” he said.
Cuomo said Irene also caused significant damage to the state’s agriculture. He said there is already $45 million in damage to 140,00 acres of farmland.
But he said despite the heavy cost, New York state will rebuild.
“We are going to rebuild back better than ever before. We’re going to use this not just as an opportunity to not just restore but to actually make this a stronger community, a stronger town, a stronger county than ever before.”
Later today, Napolitano and Fugate will head to Morris County to meet with first responders and look at the damage caused by record-setting floods.
(Source: WCBSTV)
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5 Responses
Dear Mr. Governor,
With respect, has it occurred to you that, just maybe, this can be attributed to a certain bill that you recently signed into law, whereby the State of New York now officially puts its stamp of approval on certain immoral and unnatural relationships?
Funny how the damage does not total $972,677,032. I expected him to round up.
Danielb3,
The founder of dailykos.com tweeted that the reason the epicenter of last week’s earthquake was in Virginia was that Virginia had refused to consider legalizing same sex marriage.
Unless one is a real navi, we shouldn’t speculate on things like this.
The toeivah backers, like Cuomo, claimed that passing the toeivah law would help the economy and bring business to NY.
Well, wake up Andy, do the math. Earthquakes and hurricanes are way more expensive than any couple of dollars from the abomination you pushed down our throats.
It doesn’t pay to start up with Hashem.
#3,
Since we’re not Neviim, I agree that we have no right to speak with any degree of certainty. However, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the potential consequences of society putting its stamp of approval on immoral behavior (Chazal tell us that Sedom and Amorah were destroyed because men gave each other a “kesubah,” so it’s not out of bounds to suggest that New York MAY HAVE suffered a lesser punishment for the same type of thing).
Several months ago, I wrote to my legislators urging them not to pass a similar bill in the State of Maryland. Boruch Hashem, the legislation died in the Maryland House of Delegates. I’m interested to know what you did to try preventing this law from being passed in the State of New York.