If you lost your home or your vehicles as a result of the wrath of Hurricane Sandy or if you had an extended hotel stay or were forced to keep a generator gassed up, then you know the super storm put a dent in a lot of people's wallets.

Governor Chris Christie
Governor's Office/Tim Larsen
loading...

Will a full recovery from Sandy also deliver a crushing blow to New Jersey's state budget? Governor Chris Christie doesn't think so.

"Most of this stuff is going to be covered by federal funding and private insurance money so I don't think you're going to see a drastic effect on the State budget," predicts Christie. "I don't think it's going to effect it all that much because of the anticipation that FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) would be stepping up as they have through the President's major disaster declaration and because of the private insurance money that will be available for a lot of those folks as well."

Putting a price tag on total recovery would be spit-balling according to the Governor and he's not prepared to do that.

He explains, "We'll be talking about numbers with a 'B' for sure, but what the number will be I don't know and I don't want to try to guess it, but there's no question in my mind that the losses will enter into the billions."

Last week, President Barack Obama visited New Jersey to tell residents devastated by a massive storm that "we're going to be here for the long haul." Joined by Christie, Obama inspected the devastation from super-storm Sandy, flying high over flooded neighborhoods and sand-strewn streets.

Despite the Governor's belief that the State's coffers won't take a significant hit due to the rebuilding of New Jersey, he says, "If it turns out that there are monies that need to be incurred I'm going to incur them and we'll make budget cuts elsewhere to be able to pay for them…..I think we'll be okay from a budgetary perspective."

More From New Jersey 101.5 FM