NJ Keeping Eye on 600M for Superstorm Sandy Relief.
As New Jersey prepares to spend $600 million on homes clobbered by superstorm Sandy, the state is taking steps to avoid the pitfalls of the country’s largest-ever rebuilding effort — in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.
There, hundreds of millions of federal dollars were given to residents to elevate homes in New Orleans. But in many cases, the work was never done, federal auditors have found. Eight years after the 2005 hurricane, Louisiana can’t account for how most homeowners spent grants intended to raise homes above the threat of floodwaters.
Unlike Louisiana and Mississippi, New Jersey plans to release home repair and elevation grants in installments — not in upfront lump sums. And the Christie administration also plans to hire private contractors to manage the program and oversee an estimated 30,000 property inspections over the next two years, according to officials and state documents.
But in proposing safeguards to eliminate waste, the Christie administration risks slowing work on homes along the Jersey Shore and in devastated communities …. experts say.
NOTE: Please take a look at the comment below for some important details about a previous attempt in LA>
Here is an article with some pictures of the actual process of elevating a home. The look is quite unusual while the process is going on.
Recovery Diva 
This is exactly what Louisiana proposed to do, and this is how they initially designed their program. But then HUD slapped their hand and said that would make it a construction program, which would unleash a whole new set of regulations (including environmental review for each house), thereby making the program infeasible. So Louisiana and HUD had to negotiate a new arrangement, which resulted in the upfront lump sums. So, good luck, New Jersey. Maybe Obama’s HUD will be more accommodating.