A Federal Emergency Management Agency official says a first-of-its-kind effort to make disaster-damaged homes habitable has completed work on 2,723 houses in New York City and on Long Island so far after Sandy.
That's a fraction of the requests for help — 14,725 homeowners have signed up just in New York City. But FEMA's Michael Byrne told reporters Friday that "there is progress."
The program dispatches contractors to fix electric panels and do other essential repairs at government expense. The idea is to enable homeowners to move back in quickly, but there have been some complaints about the pace of the repairs.
More than 258,000 households statewide have sought various forms of FEMA aid since Sandy. Byrne says the agency has processed about 40 percent of those requests.
