First Superstorm Sandy home buyout set to close in New York

[hrmjustin]

By Barbara Goldberg

NEW YORK | Thu Oct 3, 2013 1:38pm EDT

(Reuters) - Even when Superstorm Sandy killed their neighbors and flooded their house, Frank and Mary Lettieri vowed to stay in the Staten Island, New York, home where they raised five children.

But with a popular home buyback program set to close on its first house on Thursday and nearly the entire neighborhood fleeing, the self-declared holdouts are starting to blink.


The voluntary buyback program spearheaded by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo would replace storm-ravaged neighborhoods with open land that could bear the brunt of future storms, and most residents are accepting the state's offer to pay full, pre-storm price and moving on.

Those determined to stay are beginning to wonder what will happen to them when everyone else around them is gone.


Read more at http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/03/us-storm-sandy-buyouts-idUSBRE9920QZ20131003

[dipsydoodle]

1. "replace storm-ravaged neighborhoods with open land"

until some comedian builds there again.