Governor Christie Says Progress Is Being Made After Sandy [AUDIO]

During last night's "Ask The Governor" show, Governor Christie said when hurricane Sandy slammed Jersey more than 3 weeks ago, "it was a harrowing night and we woke up that next morning to a level of destruction we've never seen in the state's history.

But today, "Everyone in New Jersey has power, 98 percent of our schools are open and operating, all of our state roads are open with the exception of 35 and 36, which are now near ready to open. You know we have clean water for everybody- the sewage treatment plants are now running if not at peak efficiency, they're running and processing that...These are all things that were not operational 3 weeks ago - and so it's been an incredible 3 weeks as Governor - I think we're in a much better place now than we were 3 weeks ago."

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Christie also said he was stunned at the level of destruction caused by the storm, and after his first tour around the state he told members of his Cabinet, "I've never seen anything like it in my life and I never thought I would see anything like this."

The Governor added he's not surprised so much progress has been made in restoring vital services because of the group he's surrounded by.

"We've worked every day 16 to 18 hours a day, along with local and county officials, for the past 3 weeks."

As for the barrier islands, Christie said, "It's going to take some time to get them back and rolling - restoring power for instance is going to be literally a house by house proposition...They'll have to go house to house and figure out what kind of flooding happened in that house. Are the circuit breakers operational? Are they going to start a fire if you put power on? Hundreds of power poles are down and wires are a tangled mess."

As for having to face this kind of a disaster Christie as Governor, he said, "This is the kind of thing you hope never happens, but I believe these are the kind of things I was elected to handle...I have been invigorated by the challenge and we're going to continue to try to earn your trust

everyday, that's our job."