Sandy Victims Still Not Home 3 Years After Storm Blast Christie At Protest

TRENTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Some New Jersey victims of Superstorm Sandy said they feel Gov. Chris Christie has forgotten about them in his pursuit of the presidency.

Victims are staging a protest across from the Statehouse in Trenton that  a Sandy victims' advocacy group said will run from Tuesday through Thursday.

Continuing battles with insurance companies, banks, contractors and the state are keeping some of the last Sandy victims from returning to their homes three years after the storm, the New Jersey Organizing Project said.

Chuck Griffin, who was displaced by Sandy, said his contractor keeps delaying reconstruction on his house.

"I got a lot of, 'Oh, we're going to start next week,' 'Oh, we're going to start next month,' 'Oh we're waiting on cribbing,' 'Oh, we didn't get the permit yet,'" Griffin told 1010 WINS. "I've been getting that for probably five months."

About a dozen protesters intended to pitch tents and camp out across from Christie's office to dramatize their plight, but were barred by State Police from using tents.

Demonstrators said they'll sit or stand outdoors through Friday.

"We're prepared to sleep under the stars," Joe Mangino with the New Jersey Organizing Project told 1010 WINS. "We have some sleeping bags and some little chairs."

"We're just taking this opportunity cause we know we have a short window where Sandy will be at the forefront again as we come up on the anniversary," Mangino added. "We're just trying to make our legislators aware that they need to take action now before it's too late for thousands of families."

"They can tell us we can't have tents, they can tell us can't have anything, but we're going to be there, we're not going away, they're not going to be able to ignore us," Sandy victim Doug Quinn said.

Quinn, whose Toms River home is still uninhabitable since the Oct. 29, 2012 storm, said Christie has "completely forgotten about us."

"He didn't even mention Sandy in his State of the State speech," Quinn said. "We feel absolutely abandoned by Chris Christie.''

Christie spokesman Brian Murray said New Jersey has made "tremendous progress'' since Superstorm Sandy.

"There is still much to do,'' he said, "and the governor is as committed today as he has always been in seeing the job through.''

Christie recently defended his performance in Sandy recovery, saying he had "a pretty good batting average.''

"I will never be completely satisfied until everybody who wants to be back in their home is back in their home. But to say that in less than three years, we have the overwhelming majority -- 365,000 homes damaged or destroyed in Sandy -- and now you're talking about a few thousand that are left, folks who have not gotten back in, I think it's a pretty good record.''

The state Community Affairs Department said Tuesday that of the more than 8,000 homeowners active in the state's main rebuilding grant program, 7,680 have signed their awards and more than 7,600 have received at least one payment for their homes, indicating they are in the construction phase.

Of those, nearly 2,000 have completed construction. To date, more than $659 million has been paid out to homeowners under the program, more than half the projected total.

Thursday is the third anniversary of the storm.

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