One year ago, when Hurricane Sandy struck our shores, Gov. Chris Christie’s approval rating hit a historic high. Who could forget the blue fleece? With his bear hugs for flooding victims, bro-hug for President Obama and lambasting of congressional Republicans who tried to hold our relief money hostage, he truly rallied the public.

Too bad that strong leadership didn’t extend to telling New Jerseyans what we needed to hear most: that we must protect ourselves from rising sea levels that worsen severe flooding, and mightier storms in the future.

Christie doesn’t like to utter the words "climate change," but with the one-year anniversary coming up in two days, it’s time to be frank: We aren’t stronger than the storm. And given the lack of transparency in his administration’s rebuilding process so far, it’s hard to tell if we’ll ever be.

Here’s what we do know: Other states hit by Sandy, including New York, Delaware and Maryland, are rebuilding higher than we are. Which means that when next big storm sweeps through, New Jerseyans could get clobbered all over again — while watching our neighbors across the Hudson bounce back relatively quickly.

"It would be truly ironic and terrible if people finally get back into their houses and then find out that, oops, it needed to be higher," said Michael Catania, co-chair of the Climate Adaptation Alliance at Rutgers. "I don’t know what we tell those people then."

WHAT SEA LEVEL RISE?

A satellite photo of Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 28, 2012, the day before the superstorm hit New Jersey.

The governor says his mission is to bring back the Jersey Shore. He’s not interested in some futuristic redesign, and with the exception of limited buyouts and his tough stance on the "knuckleheads" blocking dune construction, he doesn’t want state government to get involved in how and where people can build back.

Nor does he want to talk about an "esoteric" topic like climate change. After all, why rankle his conservative base before the 2016 presidential primaries — or remind everyone of his record on climate before Sandy?

Christie withdrew New Jersey from a regional treaty on climate change, and robbed our state’s clean-energy fund of $1 billion to balance his budgets. Now, he refuses to acknowledge any role climate change might play in a storm like Sandy, calling it "a scientific discussion and debate that I’m simply not engaged in."

But to ignore the science on this is crazy. Global warming is raising sea levels at an accelerating rate, and it’s worse in New Jersey than most other states, in part because of the retreat of glaciers from Canada since the last Ice Age, Rutgers scientists say.

They predict sea levels here will rise up to 2 feet over the next 30 years, and 3.5 feet or higher over the next century. To understand the danger, consider this: With just 3 more feet of sea level rise, the nor’easter that came right after Sandy would have produced even worse flooding than we suffered with Sandy.

Christie’s top officials have been no-shows at recent legislative hearings on storm recovery, and his Sandy czar, Marc Ferzan, is like Oz behind the curtain. But as far as we know, the state isn’t using any of the available science on sea level rise for planning purposes.

The flood maps drawn up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency do not consider rising sea levels or the increasing frequency of big storms. And the Christie administration is requiring everyone to tack on only a 1-foot margin of safety, the bare minimum mandated by a previous state regulation.

Many homes are up for sale and businesses are struggling along New Jersey's Bay Shore, one year after the monster storm struck.

That’s probably okay for a few decades. But by mid-century, it could put us at top risk for catastrophic coastal flooding — what Catania calls "a fool’s error."

"To spend this amount of money and effort on something that is basically doomed to be inadequate is really a shame," he said.

'LEADING BY EXAMPLE'

New Jersey’s approach is not as bad as the one we saw in North Carolina, where Republican lawmakers actually tried to ban coastal towns from planning around any faster rate of sea level rise than what’s occurred in the past — an outright attack on climate change science.

But the Christie administration could be doing a lot more. The governors of New York, Delaware and Maryland have all been outspoken about the need to prepare for sea level rise, and their states are rebuilding higher than we are.

Delaware’s secretary of the environment, Collin O’Mara — the equivalent of New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin — says state agencies in Delaware are required to take sea level projections into account, and build future construction at least 2 feet above FEMA’s best available data to protect against more extreme storms. The state is recommending the same for municipalities.

"We’re leading by example," O’Mara said. "We wanted to make sure we weren’t asking any local government to do anything we weren’t doing ourselves."

Maryland has the same policy, and New York City amended its building code after Sandy to require 2 feet of additional elevation. That’s what Kenneth Miller, a Rutgers scientist who studies sea level rise, recommends for New Jersey.

"If I want my grandkids to be in my house, I would make sure that I was protected for 2 additional feet above FEMA recommendations," he said. "And if I had a conversation with the governor, I’d say, I think it would be prudent to go 2 feet — to follow New York."

Infrastructure such as a power substation should be elevated by more than 3 feet if we want it to last until 2100, Miller said. He’s shared his advice with Martin. But since the state has taken a hands-off approach, it’s up to each town whether or not to follow it.

SPORADIC ON SAFETY

New taxi cabs in a flooded lot in Hoboken, two days after Hurricane Sandy made landfall.

A few towns are building higher than the state standard: Sea Bright has a 2-foot requirement, and it’s 3 feet in Monmouth Beach. But local push-back can make that tough.

When Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer tried to pass an ordinance that would require 2- and 3-foot buffers in high-risk areas, council members voted it down, siding with developers, she said. She’s vowed to try again.

"The reality is, 8 percent of our city was flooded and many people have to pay into the national flood insurance program," Zimmer said. "I think we as elected officials have an obligation to reduce the flood insurance rates as much as we can."

The cost difference between elevating 1 foot and 2 feet isn’t much, and by rebuilding to the state’s lower standard, homeowners are not only failing to protect their homes — they may also be unwittingly inflating their insurance rates.

New Jersey’s 1-foot requirement is "not serving the public very well," said John Miller, a flooding expert who is helping Hoboken rebuild. But many won’t realize this until they get socked with a hefty premium: "There will be people who are furious."

It’s also a matter of public safety. If we built 2 or 3 feet higher in Atlantic City, Hoboken and Wildwood alone, it would protect as much as a quarter of our population at the highest risk of severe flooding, according to a soon-to-be-released study from the nonprofit Climate Central.

In New Jersey, that population is disproportionately poor and elderly — more so than in New York. And emergency responders and taxpayers who would otherwise have to bail them out would be better protected, too.

It’s true that higher elevation isn’t the only answer. We need seawalls and dunes, and should just retreat from some areas. Christie’s buyout money is well-spent.

But where’s the strategic plan for all the places that shouldn’t be rebuilt? If we start with an elevation that’s insufficient and fail to encourage long-range planning, we are setting ourselves up for another disaster.

Protecting our state against sea level rise means getting past "the infatuation that New Jersey has with local control," says former Gov. Jim Florio, who also heads the Rutgers climate panel. "There needs to be more central direction," he added. "We can’t do it town by town."

Until the Christie administration takes that leadership role, its critics, including environmentalist Jeff Tittel, are right: "It’s hubris to think that we’re stronger than the storm."

Julie O'Connor is a member of The Star-Ledger editorial board: (973) 392-5839 or

joconnor@starledger.com.

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