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Feb 17

Hurricane Sandy final blow: Staten Island neighborhood abandons all hope as residents seek buyout BY MATT LYSIAK AND GREG B. SMITH

Eighty percent of the 183 homeowners in a six-block section of Oakwood Beach have banded together to ask Gov. Cuomo to buy them out — all of them at once.

Residents of Fox Beach react to news that the government will be buying them out of their houses at pre-storm rates and use the land as a barrier to protect the rest of Staten Island from future storm damage.Three residents lost their lives the night of Hurricane Sandy..Friday, February 15, 2013 (photo Debbie Egan-Chin/New York Daily News).

DEBBIE EGAN-CHIN/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Residents of Fox Beach ask the government to buy them out of their houses at pre-storm rates and use the land as a barrier to protect the rest of Staten Island from future storm damage.

They’ve had enough.

On the far end of Staten Island, on a vulnerable patch of marshland, a collection of modest bungalows was hit so hard by Hurricane Sandy that the entire neighborhood is getting ready to pack up and leave.

Eighty percent of the 183 homeowners in a six-block section of Oakwood Beach have banded together to ask Gov. Cuomo to buy them out — all of them at once.

“I’m done,” declared a heartbroken Joe Monte, a city worker who has lived for 22 years on Fox Beach Ave. “I can’t handle it no more. I can’t go near this home. I can’t see this home. It’s affected my family. Just get us out of there. I want to feel normal again.”

Monte and most of his neighbors are banking on Cuomo’s promise to buy out homeowners in extremely vulnerable Sandy-affected areas. Cuomo wants to build buffer zones to absorb the high water of future storms.

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/s-neighborhood-abandons-hope-article-1.1266045