New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says his administration learned a lot during Superstorm Sandy and the five years of rebuilding. The recollections of his senior staff and cabinet members have been put in a recovery playbook for the state.
Christie says the book will bring back some tough memories for victims and first responders but it also highlights what’s been accomplished.
“The pictures in there are extraordinary and you forget, even those of us who were in the middle of it forget, just how severe this was and how extraordinary the task was before us. But folks did it and this book chronicles that.”
He says trauma centers that didn’t have backup power available during Sandy do now.
‘We don’t want to see what we’ve seen happen in other states and we didn’t see happen here and we won’t in the future of people who are dying because they can’t have power to give them the treatment they need for whatever they’re suffering from at that time.”
Christie says improvements in the power grid should also prevent water treatment and wastewater treatment plants from being out of operation if there are other severe storms.
Five years after it damaged or destroyed 365,000 homes in New Jersey, Christie says the recovery from Sandy is about 85 percent complete, but about a thousand families are still not back home.
You can see the book online: http://nj.gov/governor/Sandy-Play-Book/#p=1