Hurricane Irene Carries $55 Million Price Tag for NYC
The figures are in and Hurricane Irene took another hit on the wallets of the citizens of New York City. The hurricane which led to a shutdown of the MTA subway system and evacuations caused at least $55 million in damage, officials said Tuesday.
The Office of Emergency Management spokesman Chris Gilbride issued a statement Tuesday detailing the financial impacts the storm created. According to the OEM, most of the costs were contributed to the city’s responses to the storm, the recovery effort, and damage to public infrastructure throughout the five boroughs.
Even though Hurricane Irene spared most of New York City from complete destruction, the storms hurricane force winds, flooding rains, and isolated small tornadoes did enough damage to up the city’s costs.
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Some of the $55 million is attributed to the opening of shelters of evacuated residents in low-lying areas and overtime pay for the employees working around the clock to ensure New Yorkers were safe. In addition, Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered transit systems to be shut down in preparation for the storm in the first time in the city’s history.
OEM added that the $55 million total is a “preliminary figure” and that “it will take several more weeks to figure out the full extent of the city's storm related costs.”
There is a little good news to the high costs. The OEM also states that the city qualifies for 90 percent reimbursement and will be applying for federal disaster aid in the upcoming weeks and months.
Also, “each of the city's five boroughs met the additional threshold necessary to qualify for money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and from the state.”
Hurricane Irene had a devastating impact to the state of New York with a price tag of at least $1 billion.
