Storm Chronicles - Year Three After Superstorm Sandy

by Patricia A. Miller

The warnings began almost a week before the monster storm hit.

Prepare for the big one. Pack an emergency kit. Move your cars. Make sure you have an escape plan. And as Superstorm Sandy swirled closer and closer, the final warning - Get out. Get out now.

Many hoped that the weather models would change from the disastrous predictions. They hoped Superstorm Sandy would fork to the right, out to sea, instead of taking an unbelievable sharp left, right into the Jersey coast. Some thought they could ride out the maelstrom heading our way.

The weather models didn’t change. Sandy slammed in New Jersey. She took homes, belongings, electricity, roads, infrastructure and four people lives in Ocean County with her.

Three years later, anyone who was directly impacted by Sandy probably still has post traumatic stress syndrome and probably always will. I know I do. Whenever the winds pick up and the Toms River rises, I go into near-panic mode. I have seen what can happen.

For those who didn’t live near the water, Sandy is, as Berkeley Mayor Carmen F. Amato Jr. says ”a distant memory.”

But it’s not for those who did. Many are still struggling through the state’s RREM program. It’s designed to help primary homeowners raise their homes as protection against future storms and terrible flood insurance hikes.

But the RREM has been fraught with problems from the beginning. Homeowners are still trying to deal with changes, like the state’s recent decision to enforce the Coastal Zone A - which imposes stricter elevation standards and requires that more homes have to go up on pilings, rather than adding blocks to a concrete foundation.

Our house is a 51 percenter. That means it was substantially damaged. The entire interior of the house had to be gutted, right down to the studs in the crawl space. Electrical wiring, plumbing, the heating systems, floors, walls up to four feet - all gone. It also means we have to elevate. No way of getting around that.

We lived in my son’s basement for seven months, until the repairs were made. When we finally came home, shortly before Memorial Day 2013, we still had no kitchen cabinets, countertops, stove or sink. Things finally came together around Thanksgiving.

Others had it much, much worse. I have a friend who just moved into her new Lavallette, almost three years since she fled her parent’s bungalow, which was destroyed. Another couple up the street from us spent their last night in their Bayville home on Oct. 27, 2012.

By the time Sandy finally moved away, their home had three feet of water in it and a tree on the roof. The lot is for sale, the home remains - mostly likely a mold bomb by now.

Drive though tiny Ocean Gate today and you will see much larger, higher homes going up since Oct. 29, 2012. The borough was largely a summer community in the first half of the 1900s. You can still see the bungalows of the day now. Drive by at night and many are unlit. That’s because no one lives in them. Maybe they didn’t get enough money from their insurance companies. Maybe they didn’t have insurance. Maybe they don’t have the funds to demolish the houses. So they sit empty and dark.

Good Luck Point was ground zero in Bayville. This small spit of land juts out into Barnegat Bay. Today it is a much different place than it was on Oct. 28, 2012.

The only way you can tell where a house once stood on many lots are the mailboxes that dot Good Luck Drive. There are still a few of the battered modest ranch homes standing. No one lives in them. The rest of Good Luck Point is empty lots and much, much bigger homes taking their place.

And many in the Beach Haven West section of Stafford Township are still struggling to rebuild. I remember a FEMA representative who predicted it would probably take New Jersey 10 years to fully recover from Sandy. I think he’s right.

Berkeley Township Mayor Carmen F. Amato Jr. posted his memories of Sandy on his Facebook page today, including a photo of the Office of Emergency Management Team planning for Sandy on Oct. 28, 2012.

“Little did we know the havoc that would follow,” he wrote. ”Thousands without power, mandatory evacuations, temporary shelters, emergency rescues..... And, as Mayor, I could not be more proud of how people across town – regardless of their political party – responded after Sandy to help their neighbors in need. We ALL came together as a township. It may have been our darkest time, but it was certainly our shining moment. I hope and pray we never have to endure this ever again.”

“Three years later, Sandy maybe a distant memory for some, for us we will never forget,“ the mayor wrote. “Our focus continues to be helping those affected. Helping them rebuild so they can get back home.”

Photo credits: Ocean County Sheriff’s Department, Berkeley Patch