CONCORD, N.H. — Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie told reporters Monday that comparing the record flooding in his home state to the damage done by Hurricane Sandy is “outrageous.”
“To say that the flooding was worse now than Hurricane Sandy, of course it was,” the New Jersey governor told reporters shortly after his press conference to announced the endorsement of Sen. John McCain’s former New Hampshire chairman.
“Cape May, N.J., wasn’t hit in Hurricane Sandy, it’s a ridiculous comparison,” he noted, referring to a coastal county in the Garden State that reached a water level just shy of nine inches on Saturday.
“Mid-Atlantic coastline flooded by blizzard’s storm surge. ‘This is worse than Sandy,'” read a Washington Post headline late Sunday evening.
Christie, who put his six-day campaign swing through New Hampshire on pause last Friday to return to his home state, said “any comparisons to Hurricane Sandy are outrageous,” and dismissed his claims that his 24-hour return to New Jersey wasn’t nearly enough time for him to deal with the aftermath of Winter Storm Jonas.
“You’re always going to get people who are going to be critical,” he said Monday.
According to the two-term governor, who’s previously claimed Hurricane Sandy “prepared” him for the duties he’d face as commander in chief, state officials are currently making “preliminary damage assessments [to] see if it comes in close to the federal threshold to ask for disaster relief.”
“We won’t have those answers for another 48-72 hours,” Christie said.
Christie is likely to return to New Jersey on Tuesday for another 24-hour trip before he heads to Iowa Wednesday where he will remain until the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses.
