Totally Fake News and Big Lie #1 started in Atlantic City on October 29, 2012 with: “Superstorm Sandy Destroys Atlantic City Boardwalk”.
The truth is that Sandy was not a “superstorm”. On October 29, 2012, it landed in Brigantine, New Jersey with 90 mile per hour winds that quickly weakened. Sandy did cause bad flooding by the back bays and tidal rivers of the New Jersey coast.
That was because Sandy came ashore during the unusual high tide of a full moon. Sandy also took an unusual “left hook” from the east. It did not come up from the south like most hurricanes. This caused strong winds from the east to push ocean water into back bays and tidal rivers for more than a day before the storm landed.
However ABC, CBS, and other national TV networks falsely reported “Superstorm Sandy Destroys Atlantic City Boardwalk”.
This remote section of Atlantic City’s Boardwalk was abandoned after a storm in 1980! When it washed away during Sandy in 2012, ABC, CBS, and other national TV networks falsely reported “Superstorm Sandy Destroys Atlantic City Boardwalk”. This photo was taken by the Press of Atlantic City during November of 2011, nearly a year before Sandy! None of these media outlets every corrected, retracted, or apologized for their fake news.
Four days after the storm passed, Atlantic City officials begged the national media to retract, correct, and apologize for their false statement that Sandy “destroyed” Atlantic City’s Boardwalk. They never did.
A nationwide poll taken two months after Sandy passed showed that 25% of Americans still believed the Fake News that Sandy destroyed the Atlantic City Boardwalk. That same poll found that 32% of Americans in the Northeast thought the same thing.
None of the Atlantic City casinos were flooded or closed by Sandy. The casino hotels closed only because Republican Governor Christie ordered them to be closed. During previous storms, like Irene in 2011, guests continued to gamble, casinos profited and paid taxes, and employees were put up in the hotels overnight and earned overtime pay and large tips. They were all safe. Atlantic City casino hotels are big sturdy structures that are often used as storm shelters.
Governor Christie and top federal and state Emergency Management officials knew immediately that the Atlantic City Boardwalk and the casinos were not flooded or damaged in any way. Yet they refused to do or say anything to refute the false news reports.
On the next day, Tuesday, October 30, Sandy and its flood waters were gone. Democratic President Obama had no trouble flying to towns hit by the storm on his Marine One helicopter with NJ Republican Governor Chris Christie.
They both chose to land in Brigantine, an island just across a small bridge from Atlantic City. Was that because they didn’t want the national media to see that there was no damage to the Atlantic City Boardwalk for casinos!
Above Image: Destroyed sections of the Atlantic City Boardwalk and Heinz 57 Pier after 1944 Hurricane.
The “March Storm” of 1962 caused far more flooding and damage than Sandy. However, Atlantic City dried out, cleaned up and fixed up and was open for business again by Memorial Day–without any federal storm “relief”.
Atlantic City, Brigantine, and all coastal resort towns in New Jersey were flooded by storms just like Sandy in 1938, 1944, 1962, and 1991.
During each of those storms, business and homeowners quickly dried out and cleaned up their flooded homes and businesses to minimize the damage. However, after Sandy, Governor Christie ordered State Police to block all roads leading to the beach towns. Residents and business owners were not allowed to return until Friday or Saturday—four to five days after the storm.
After Sandy, federal and state authorities also warned business and home owners not to dry out, clean or repair their homes or businesses. They were told they might be denied government compensation if they did any work before their properties were inspected. This often caused additional damage from mold and corrosion.
There were also long delays in restoring electric power to many areas. Was that because damage to power lines from Sandy was more severe than damage caused by previous storms? Or was it because Atlantic City Electric then had much fewer repair crews and equipment than in the past?
However, some people had good reasons to call Sandy a “superstorm”. Democratic President Obama did it to show bipartisan leadership in a crisis by helping New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie one week before the Presidential Election on Tuesday, November 6– one week after the storm. Christie’s lavish praise of Obama helped Democrats win that election.
Republican Chris Christie also used “superstorm” Sandy to boost his campaign for re-election as NJ Governor in 2013. Christie wanted to win Democrat support to prove he should be the Republican nominee for President in 2016. Christie also failed to control state spending as Governor, and needed billions of dollars of federal aid to balance the New Jersey state budget without tax hikes in that 2013 election year.
Big Lie #2: There was an urgent need end budget limits and immediately borrow and spent $61 billion for Sandy “relief”. Truth: Damage from Sandy was similar to that of similar previous storms. However, years of bad government policies made clean up and repairs slower and far more expensive than in the past.
Once the “superstorm” lie got media and bi-partisan political support, Obama Democrats and Chris Christie Republicans persuaded Republican House Speaker John Boehner to scrap previously agreed budget limits, and to borrow and spend $61 billion for Sandy “relief”. Those budget limits were made when “Tea Party” conservatives put Republicans back in in the majority of the House of Representatives in 2010, and made Boehner the Speaker in 2011.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to rushed $61 billion for Sandy “relief” on December 28, 2012. The Senate vote was 62 to 32. Boehner’s “swamp” Republican majority approved $60.4 billion on January 4, 2013 by 345 to 67.
This pattern of ignoring budget limits and routinely borrowing and spending billions, and later trillions for “emergencies” has now become normal. At first this did not hurt our economy because other countries like Russia, China, and Arab oil producers bought large amounts of U.S. government bonds. However, we had massive inflation during the past year as soon as they began to invest elsewhere.
New Jersey received billions of that federal Sandy “relief”. This was far more than what was needed to repair actual storm damage. Much of those billions let Christie to avoid state tax and toll hikes before he ran for re-election in 2013. They also bought expensive radio, TV, and newspaper ads praising Governor Christie during his re-election campaign.
This also helped Christie manipulate the news and silence opposition. When I ran against Christie for Governor in the Republican Primary, many newspapers, radio, and TV stations refused to even mention my name because they were afraid of angering Christie and losing “Stronger Than The Storm” advertising money.
Big Lie #3. There was severe flood damage in poor and middle class neighborhoods in Ocean and Monmouth County because rich beachfront homeowners would not allow sand dunes in front of their homes. Truth: Beach front homes are on the highest part of barrier islands. Sandy flooded bay and tidal river properties because it took a “left hook” and approached from the east.
As soon as it became known that there was little damage to beach front homes, and that most flooding took place near the back bays and tidal rivers, “woke” Democrats falsely blamed “the rich” by the beach. Although this was an obvious lie, Republican Governor Chris Christie joined Democrats in repeating it.
Christie immediately worked with Obama Democrats to mandate expensive sand dune projects for every beach front town. When property owners and beach goers objected, Christie publicly said that public safety was far more important than their ocean views and recreation.
See: Dune Czar will need a pile of power – nj.com
Two years later, when he was an active candidate for President, Christie specifically denounced beachfront homeowners in Bay Head as “extraordinarily selfish” and again blamed them for causing flood damage to other properties:
Above Image: Margate’s wide beaches protected the town from most ocean flood damage since the short wooden seawall was built after the 1944 Hurricane. Most damage from Sandy came from the back pay. Margate voters rejected Governor Christie’s plans to build artificial sand dunes to block ocean views and access to their beach. However, Christie ignored their vote and sued to forced them to build the dunes anyway.
The third big lie about Hurricane Sandy started in Ocean County. Democrats there falsely claimed that homes and neighborhoods of poor and middle class families along the back bays and rivers in New Jersey were flooded and destroyed because rich owners of beachfront homes in towns like Bay Head refused to give permission to build piles of sand on the beach that would block their views of the ocean.
Big Lie #4: Sandy was a “superstorm” because of “climate change”. Truth: The earth’s climate has been changing for billions of years. The earth has been warming ever since the giant ice sheets, that once covered most of New Jersey during the “Ice Age” started melting 10,000 years ago.
1. Sandy was not a “superstorm”. It caused widespread flooding because it landed during an unusually high tide caused by a full moon, and because it approached New Jersey from the east, rather than from the south.
2. Sandy maintained hurricane strength in October because it travelled northeast from the Bahamas over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. Only a rare high pressure area by Greenland forced Sandy to take a rare “left hook” into New Jersey.
3. Sandy was no more intense than hurricanes and northeast storms that have always caused floods to coastal towns in New Jersey every 20 to 30 years. Sandy was no more intense than previous severe storms that caused flooding and destruction to coastal towns in New Jersey in 1938, 1944, 1962, and 1991.
4. Although Sandy was no more intense than previous hurricanes and northeast storms, the costs of repairing the damage were much higher than for previous storms. There are several reasons for this, including:
a. People today are building more expensive and permanent homes and businesses closer to the ocean and tidal rivers and back bays. One reason for this is that the federal government now has programs that pay home and businesses to rebuild by the water.
b. Government officials today prevent or discourage property owners from quickly drying out and repairing their properties.
c. State, local, and county officials often exaggerate damage cause by storms and inflate repair estimates to get bigger storm relief from federal government agencies.
d. Most electric utility companies today have less equipment and fewer workers to repair storm damage than they did forty years ago.
e. Federal, state, and local officials created complicated building codes and regulations that cost much more to comply with.
Big Lie #5: To stop “Climate Change”, we need to stop using coal, oil and natural gas. We need tear down the Beesley’s Point power plant. We must instead build more solar panel and wind turbines in the ocean. We must drive electric cars with expensive and toxic batteries to stop “climate change”.
Truth: Carbon dioxide is a life-giving natural gas that boosts the growth of green plants. Scientists do not agree that changes in carbon dioxide levels cause “climate change”. However, if they do, a handful of nuclear reactors like the one in Salem can give us all the safe, abundant, reliable, and cheap electricity we need without producing any carbon dioxide. France is energy independent because of nuclear reactors. Why don’t “woke” Democrats even mention nuclear power? Wind and solar energy is too weak and unreliable to power a modern society. It is as useless as electricity produced by lightening because it cannot be stored. Wind and solar energy are expensive and save little if any fossil fuel. That is because fossil fuel generators must always run as backups to power the grid whenever the wind stops, a cloud goes by, or night comes. New Jersey and other states and countries that force customers to pay for wind turbines and solar panels pay much more for electricity than states and countries that don’t.
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