708 Fischer Blvd. (not 709). It's in Belly Busters Restaurant, in a strip mall. Bring a friend. ==> Fight the erroneous maps, the "overkill" elevation requirements and the exorbitant annual insurance costs! FEMA's wacky plan has already de-valued your property (who would buy it with $100,000+ costs built in?), so join us and help save our communities. ==> More info at Facebook.com/StopFemaNow.

It's cheaper to build seawalls covered by dunes than to make TENS OF THOUSANDS elevate their homes and businesses all along the coastline. More effective, too. Just try raising Rt. 35 when they rebuild it, or it will be washed away in the next storm -- because an elite few think their VIEW is more important than the safety of everyone up to 2 miles behind them!

" as Kasimos believes, it’s not about flood mitigation, but about funding the FEMA-run National Flood Insurance Program"......ACTUALLY, it's about laying the ground-work so that big insurance companies will be able to successfully TAKE-OVER the National Flood Program. Big insurance companies are anticipating jumping into the whole that FEMA has dug and they will then charge us the CORRECT PREMIUM amount for the "risk" that they insure. The National Flood premiums are woefully low compared to the risk...so they can not possibly cover all of the damages...soooo....we are being set-up for MANDATORY Flood placement in a few short years.... so everyone will be forced to carry flood insurance and pay something, similar to the JUA for auto forced-placed risk in New Jersey.

FEMA an Obama admninistration run program; made up their minds, Chris Christie to get the money needed to rebuild accepted the new FEMA maps. You can all get together jump up and down running naked on 37. Grouping together at some crappy diner is not gonna help. Nobody is going to change thier minds.

Did you all vote for Obama. Well if you did...Live with your administrations decisions. YOU voted for him.

This is absolutely fantastic. I plan on going.

Homes damaged by Sandy need to be repaired now! This is a situation that cannot wait for floodmap revisions or governmental aid to help elevation problems. I do believe most of the homes damaged inland, especially in my area of Baywood, would never have received so much storm damage if the ocean had not broke through at Mantaloking. For over fifty years my home never had any water damage--at most water only topped the dock, not the bulkhed. Now the home needs to be elevated? My neighborhood is a low to mid Middle Class neighborhood. The hundreds who live here cannot afford to offset the costs involved that should be absorbed by the State in protecting the inland residences or by those who insist on retaining their personal ocean view.

I support the idea of the group. Sea walls are part of the answer . However most of the flooding was from the bayside. How do sea walls and dunes prevent that damage?

Don't take the money in the first place if you don't want to follow regulations.

NJ is once again the first on the losing side. We pay more in taxes than we get back and now we are expected to be the first to pay for another failed goverment agency that is bankrupt because we had the most recent disaster. I have heard the excuse that they were working on these maps before the strom but those that don't think they expidiated the new maps knowing the NJ is one of the nations biggest oppurtunities at filling the governements coffers has thier eyes closed.

It is critical for the focus of much of the potential bay flood remediation plan to include increasing the depth of Barnaget Bay as the Mantaloking breach of the Ocean poured tons of sand into the bay, and as a result it can not absorb the range of south wind tidal changes that were common pre Sandy. Further, with the latest guidelines for raising homes to mitigate the drastic rise of flood insurance, how is the average middle class and retired resident to cope with the expense for such action. At least 90 percent of the water front shore towns contain older homes that were either built on cement slabs or do not have the design flexibility to raise them to extent required, Such homes will have to be torn down longer term and the basic shore communities will no longer be available to middle class residents.

The right thing to do is to fight the maps while we rebuild. Worst can happen, you will have extremely low insurance and be built to modern standards.

I agree with the STOP FEMA NOW program. I live in Cherry Quay (Brick) and know this area well. I've lived in Brick all of my life and it has never flooded. The reason for the flooding was, as noted herein, due to the barrier island breaching (THE ISLAND FAILED TO DO IT'S JOB). A seawall is the only financial option available. The cost of grants to the government to raise all the homes will exceed the cost of a seawall. All of the bayside communities will be gone as people can barley afford to repair their homes, replace cars and furniture (along with clothing and all personal items), let alone face the major cost to raise their homes. This is a money grab plan devised to fund the insurance companies; why should NJ pay for the mess that occurred in New Orleans. In addition, if the bayside communities, that pay higher taxes to local towns, are gone than EVERYONE else in the towns (inland including) will pay higher taxes. SO THIS AFFECTS ALL RESIDENTS OF LOCAL TOWNS!!! I'll be at the meeting tomorrow.

This has been mentioned in previous posts in other blogs that even FEMA employees in the field have mentioned that FEMA it's testing the reaction to these new rates to see public reaction, that's why there isn't much chat about flood rates going up 1000%+ in other states! Even ones that were hit by sandy.

We need numbers please come to our meeting on Sat.We are fighting for our homes.

Raising homes with government grant money will cost over 30 billion dollars (assuming $30k/house (a low figure) at a million houses (affected by the new FEMA maps along the coast). Plus the timing to get this major reconstruction project completed; if it takes 3 weeks to complete a house raising project, for the same million houses, it will be 3 million weeks. That's 57,000 years for one company. So assume there are 1000 companies (existing and new that get into the business) it will be over 50 years. HELLO, this is basic math. Maybe my number of houses is wrong, but you can see the order of magnitude of this task. Don't believe FEMA. It is a cost effective solution to build a seawall; it will be completed in less than 10 years and everyone will stay in their home and it will be business as usual. STOP FEMA NOW! See you on Saturday at the meeting.

It would be a good idea to video the gathering and any related stories and posted to YouTube. Without massive publicity, this movement will have a hard time gaining momentum. Both Obama and Christie are enjoying record approval ratings because this subject is absent from most media. The homeowners are listening to each other but no one is listening to the group of homeowners.

like us on facebook as well https://www.facebook.com/SaveOurNJCommunities?ref=hl we also have a huge following and have direct lines and responses too and from multiple senators. also email us at saveourcommunity2013@gmail.com and request to be added to the mailing list which is already is excess of 4000 members ! we need to unite NOW !!

My house is on pilings waterfront. My area was destroyed in Sandy. My house had no damage at all. I'd never live ground level in a flood prone area. Totally not worth it. I've been here over 20 years. I would have had to rebuild at least 3 times by now.

This is hysterical. A ground roots effort, being led by people who have absolutely no real world experience in flood or any other construction method, to change back a necessary change in building regulations that are being put in place and are designed to protect peoples investments and prevent future losses. The blind are truly trying to lead the blind.

Notasellout, maybe you should rethink your logic.

I would like a job working for fem-a,
you don't have to do much...

Before we break out pitchforks and torches we need more information. A post on the Christie "You Dopes" story links to a little-known FEMA letter setting the new insurance rates, but it doesn't have all the tables. Someone should get them and publicize them. What is there shows two things:
1). The average increase in premiums necessary to put the NFIP on a sound footing is about 2% (for some properties 9%). That's the increase the rest of the country is paying unless and until the ABFE zombies get them. FEMA has gone beyond this by using the ABFE process to get increases of 50% PER FOOT of new elevation.
2) Even with FEMA's overreaching, premiums are not going to increase to $32k a year. That's a worst case scenario, but FEMA is trying to use uncertainty to scare people into raising their homes. Instead it's caused panic and inertia, and that just isn't fair or right. It's in everyone's interest that we know what premiums will be before deciding what to do.

Stafford "Officials to Public Repair Homes Now, Raise Them Later".
"Stafford to Fight FEMA'S Flood Zone Maps" according to a recent press
article Mayor Spodofora has told residents to move ahead...
Stafford to Gain New Outlook on Tax Base Feb. 21, 2013 ...
"New Jersey municipalities have until March 1 to report Ocean County their total
loss in tax revenue due to Superstorm Sandy.
Stafford Township Administrator James Moran is working with the municipal tax
assessment department to calculate that figure which he estimates will fall between
$140 million and $160 million.
"We're not done yet," Moran said this week. Simultaneously, he explained Stafford is undergoing an in-house, town-wide reassessment of pre-storm property values
and then applying those values to a damage factor ranging from 10 to 50 percent.
Some 4200 homes in the Beach Haven West section of town have evidence of damage, he added.
"we will "level the playing field'" Councilman Henry Mancini explained at the recent
municipal meeting, and "will put us in better shape as we construct the budget" by
providing a realistic outlook on the ratable base.
See more on Stafford to Gain New Outlook on Tax Base, Barnegat-Manahawkin Patch February 21, 2013

At this point residents are stressed out and are frustrated about the many weeks
since Sandy Superstorm ... many I hope will move with caution on any construction
work ... I have not seen any of the specific data on ELEVATIONS ...
why hasn't FEMA and Stafford published the standards NOW???
A risky move to go ahead with construction or improvements unless YOU can
rely on the word of an official ... face facts ... in the Beach Haven West section among the several development over the last 40-50- years were all approved with the township mayor, council members, county and state officials ... cannot believe those homes were allowed to be constructed on a slab and or a few concrete blocks above grade???
My home in Surf City bless Len Connors, is on pilings and among many in the town
were not seriously impacted by Sandy ... (8-9 feet above grade).
Many of the homes that were built in Stafford with Lagoons and or on the water should have had a requirement of at least 60 inches above grade ...
"4200 homes in Beach Haven West"? How about the other hamlets along the region ??? Village Harbor, Colony Lakes etc???

Bening homeless sucks. Not knowing how or when I will return to my house is worse. Banding together is te only way our voices will be heard. SFN!

"The average increase in premiums necessary to put the National Flood Insurance Program on a sound footing is about 2% (for some properties 9%). That's the increase the rest of the country is paying... FEMA has gone beyond this by using the ABFE process to get increases of 50% PER FOOT of new elevation." (Sure. NJ has always given more to Washington than it gets back.)

FYI, the new flood insurance law was overhwlemingly passed by the House of Reps. (including both Repubs and Dems). NJ's real-world experience has proven that changes must be made.

Karly C i agree! Theres strength in numbers

DON'T PAY FLOOD INSURANCE. PERIOD. SOMETHING HAPPENS THOUGHT, HOPEFULLY, EACH OF YOU AND US, GOTTA REALLY GET CLOSE, AND MAKE FRIENDS WITH MOLD REMEDIATION TEAMS, CONTRACTORS, ETC., ETC., ETC. START BARTER, TRADE, WHATEVER. WHO CAN WORK ON HOMES, WHO CAN FEED THEM, WHO CAN DO ELECTRICAL, WHO CAN SHEETROCK, WHO CAN PAINT, ETC. ETC. ETC. TELL FEMA AND BOTH POLITICAL PARTIES GET OUT OF OUR FACES. DON'T NEED THEM.........................YES, I KNOW, IT'S CRAZY, BUT, THEN AGAIN, IT'S SOMETHING TO CONSIDER! IF EVERYONE HELPS EVERYONE ELSE..................PIE IN THE SKY GUY.. BUT, I TRY!

SO, WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE MEETING? SINCE THE POLICE SHUT IT DOWN, WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? JUST ASKIN.....