On a residential block in Lambertville, New Jersey where Tropical Storm Ida’s flood waters swept two houses into Swan Creek, Governor Phil Murphy announced a $50 million investment in a homeowner buyout program for Ida-impacted communities, and $10 million in community stormwater assistance grants.
On September 1, 2021, Ida’s strong winds, tornadoes and heavy rainfall resulted in extreme flooding that damaged homes, public facilities, and other structures, and took 29 lives. To date, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has provided more than $247 million in individual assistance to 44,866 New Jersey residents impacted by Ida.
The state’s $50 million investment in the Blue Acres Buyout Program is the first phase of a plan to maximize all available federal Ida disaster recovery funds including the recently announced $228 million in federal U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Block Grant.
The Blue Acres Program allows homeowners to sell flood-damaged or flood-prone homes at a market rate to the state. In turn, the state then demolishes the home, and the land is preserved for open space, recreational purposes, or for permanently preserved wetlands to avoid the cycle of flood-damage-rebuild-repair that has become common in the state’s worst flood zones.
The program is prioritizing homes that are now uninhabitable because they were either destroyed or severely damaged by Ida.
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