For This Sandy Survivor, Memories Of Police Assistance Shine Through

Carol Soreca still remembers the shock she felt when she finally saw her home -- or what was left of it -- after Superstorm Sandy wreaked destruction.

She knew her home had burned to the ground, a casualty of the fires that turned neighboring Camp Osborn to ash.

But when she stepped off the school bus that day that carried her and several of her neighbors onto the barrier island that day, Soreca said, she nearly fainted.

“I really thought I was going to pass out,” she said. “One of the police officers grabbed my arm” so she didn’t fall.

Three years later, those memories are still vivid, Soreca said. But so, too, are the memories of the care and assistance she and her neighbors on Lyndhurst Drive received in those days and weeks after Sandy tore through the Shore.

So Thursday, on the third anniversary of the storm, Soreca packed up a bunch of goodies she baked and delivered them to Brick Township’s police headquarters.

“I just want to show them we haven’t forgotten what they did for us,” Soreca said. “Especially these days, where there is so much negativity toward the police.”

“These guys left their families in their own devastation to help us,” she said.

A dream house

Soreca and her husband, Vincent, have owned their home on Lyndhurst Drive since 2005, she said, after they purchased the property -- a house she’d visited often as a child -- from a friend. They tore down the home that had been there for decades and built a new one, with Vincent doing much of the work.

Though it was not their primary home, Soreca said, “it was our dream home.” They spent weekends at the house much of the year, and there were times, she said, when she lived there for weeks on end.

The house was filled with antiques that belonged to generations past -- green glassware that had belonged to her aunt, family china, her grandmother’s cedar chest, and more. It was built high enough to withstand most storm surges, she said.

When Sandy came, she and her husband evacuated to their home in Tuxedo Park, N.Y., away from the danger zone. Like thousands, however, they were cut off from what was happening due to widespread power outages.

“We heard nothing,” she said. “We had no power; no access to radio, and the phone wasn’t working.” But they were desperate to get information. Finally, she was able to reach a neighbor who told her the news that all the homes on her side of the street except one had been consumed by the Camp Osborn fire.

“I didn’t anticipate that,“ she said. “I couldn’t fathom it. My mind didn’t go there. Then we started to see on the news the helicopter going over the coast, the devastation of all of this -- the place was a disaster.”

It was two weeks before she and her neighbors were finally able to access the barrier island and see for themselves what Sandy had wrought.

“I’ll never forget what I saw”

Soreca said they were taken by school bus to see their homes and find whatever they could salvage.

She remembers waiting with neighbors at the American Legion, where they gathered to take the bus in. She and her husband had shoulder bags, hoping they could find something, anything, to salvage.

“I probably cried the whole way,” Soreca said, remembering back to that day. “It was so emotional since my home was gone.”

But she also remembers looking around at neighbors and wondering how many of them were going in with false expectations.

“How many went in with hope, only to find everything gone?” she said. “My neighbor had four feet of ocean water in her home. There were crabs crawling through her house.”

The video below, taken days after Sandy hit, Soreca said, was shared around to the homeowners who couldn’t get in, and she said when they were finally able to go, the devastation was like a war zone.

“I’ll never forget what we saw. The roads were just gone,” she said.

When they got off the bus at their block, she said, the police officers and National Guard members showed them kindness and compassion, she said.

“They knew I was desperate to find something,” she said, and they got in and dug through the rubble of the house her husband had built, investing weekends and spare time until it was completed.

“We were devastated,” she said. “It was our dream home. I know it’s just things, but I knew what had gone into it.”

One police officer pulled out a cup, “but it just disintegrated,” she said.

But throughout the ordeal, she said, the police officers who helped the Sorecas and their neighbors were patient and empathetic, trying to do anything they could to help ease residents’ heartache.

And while Carol Soreca knows she and Vincent were lucky -- “Some of our neighbors lost everything, because it was their primary home,” she said -- the loss of the home was still deeply painful.

“You go through guilt as well,” she said, because they knew it could have been far worse.

Three years after Sandy hit, the Sorecas have finally rebuilt on Lyndhurst Drive and were able to come down to the Shore again this summer. So are some of her neighbors. And while the fight to return has been a long one, she and her neighbors have not forgotten the care and kindness shown during those early days of coping with Sandy’s aftermath.

“I think sometimes people get lost in their own devastation,” she said, “and I just don’t want anyone to forget the help they had to get through it.”

“Their homes were destroyed too but they were helping us,” Carol Soreca said. “We live in such a negative world now -- if we can rally and recognize the good things, we will be better off.”

“I want them to know we will never forget what they did for us. My husband is a retired Mount Vernon New York detective and my son is a police officer with the NYPD. We both know the danger police officers face today,” she said. “We need to respect our police officers and understand the perils they put themselves in to protect the community and honor their oath. So many police officers are great and are devoted to their communities and the public needs to be grateful to these ordinary men for doing an extraordinary job of keeping us all safe and helping us through difficult times.”

During Sandy, “Their homes were destroyed too but they were helping us,” Carol Soreca said. “We live in such a negative world now -- if we can rally and recognize the good things, we will be better off.”