Sandy relief is awash in legal and procedural uncertainties

At night, back in the apartment they have had to rent while they figure out what to do with their half-wrecked home in Manahawkin, Ed and Carol Krzanowski wonder whether this is the time to leave the Shore for good.

The ranch house they moved into 35 years ago, where they had planned to spend the rest of their retirement, took in two feet of salt water from nearby Manahawkin Bay during Sandy.

Like tens of thousands of homeowners up and down the Jersey Shore, the Krzanowskis are struggling to navigate a maze of insurance settlements, floodplain maps, and government disaster aid to figure out whether they can afford to rebuild.

"This is the problem. The communication is terrible, and the information is incomplete at best," said Carol Krzanowski, a retiree and former associate director of a nonprofit group. "You can't make a good decision. Every time we go to the township, the answer is: 'I don't know.' "

Uncertainty and anxiety continues to hang over the Jersey shoreline, where rebuilding is moving slowly as property owners wait for answers to critical questions that will likely determine the Shore's future for generations to come.

The most immediate is how much money they will see from the federally backed National Flood Insurance Program. More than 70,000 claims have been filed in New Jersey, and settlements have been slow in coming, according to local officials.

How slow has not been made public by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which underwrites the insurance program. The most recent statistics released by the agency date to Nov. 30, when 550 claims had been settled at a cost of $13.6 million.

Lawyer Chip Merlin, whose Tampa law firm represents about 15 New Jersey property owners in Sandy-related disputes with the insurance companies that administer the federal insurance program, said Sandy-related flood settlements were flowing far more slowly than they did to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.

"Hurricane Sandy was a real late storm in a part of the country you don't have hurricanes, so a lot of the logistical planning wasn't in place," he said. "I hear it from people out in the field all the time. There are a lot of claims that are not being fully adjusted or properly adjusted for New York and New Jersey."

In the aftermath of the storm, which struck the New Jersey and New York coastlines Oct. 29, federal officials loosened bureaucratic rules governing flood claims, said Don Griffin, a vice president with the industry group Property Casualty Insurers Association of America.

But the rules change has not been enough to speed a process that Griffin said FEMA officials told him had settled about one-third of the approximately 140,000 claims nationwide related to Sandy.

"What's different this time is the claimants and the flood adjusters that were down [on the Gulf Coast] were quite familiar with the process and how it all works," he said.

In Ocean City, where three to four feet of water flooded the historic downtown during Sandy, ground-floor business owners have been fighting with adjusters who have told them that despite paying flood premiums for years, they did not qualify for coverage because their properties sat below 100-year flood levels.

"It's been a nightmare," said Bart Russell, who is waiting for a settlement on damage to commercial space he owns on the town's main drag. "They said the building didn't meet the code. What's ticking me off is I bought the building in 2004, and it was new, and the City of Ocean City gave permits to get it built. . . . I'll see what my lawyer says."

The uncertainty has been compounded by pending questions over how the federal government plans to allow Shore areas to rebuild.

Last month FEMA released revised floodplain maps that predicted elevated flood levels in decades to come and thus set heightened standards for properties in the government's flood insurance program.

If a parcel of land is projected to take on three feet of water during a hundred-year storm, the homeowners must elevate their houses to at least that level - or pay exorbitant flood insurance premiums to get a mortgage.

But the maps are only "advisory" at this point, and many Shore towns plan to file appeals with FEMA before the revised flood elevations become official next year.

That leaves property owners with a tough choice: Wait to see how the regulations shake out or spend roughly the $50,000 it costs to elevate a standard-sized house and hope the elevation chosen is the right one.

That scenario was complicated last week when FEMA sent an e-mail telling local officials to hold off on the maps and enact a building moratorium until state officials had a chance to weigh in.

The about-face shocked Stafford Township Mayor John Spodofora, who says he is at a loss when residents ask him what to do.

"This is an example of where government is supposed to be helping people, and they're hindering people," Spodofora said. "People are in here every day crying; they've lost so much, and there are so many unknowns. It's not right."

But some financial relief could be on the horizon. At a town-hall meeting Wednesday in Stafford, Gov. Christie said now that Congress had passed President Obama's $60.4 billion aid package, aid should start flowing in the next four to six weeks.

In the meantime, those whose homes and businesses were destroyed might have to ask themselves some tough questions.

In a dark moment, Carol Krzanowski said she and her husband had considered moving to Delaware, West Virginia, or South Carolina, places where the cost of living was lower.

They live on their retirement income. The $2,500 they are now spending on rent in Ocean City, plus the 11/2-hour round-trip drives to Manahawkin for meetings with contractors and insurance adjusters, is eating into their savings.

They're reluctant to move, though. Not long before the storm hit, they had remodeled with the plan they would spend the rest of their lives at the Shore.

Now, the couple, each in their 60s, said that was less certain.

"We worked all our lives for what we thought would at least be a comfortable retirement," Carol Krzanowski said. "It's not something we wanted to think about at this point in our lives."