A Family Says Farewell To Much-Loved Home

by Patricia A. Miller

Like many other summers, Ed Majeski made the trip from North Jersey down to the family’s modest home on 50 Good Luck Drive to get in some fishing and crabbing with his two boys.

But Thursday was different. Thursday night, Majeski, Erik and Daniel slept in a small R.V. parked where their carport used to be.

They will never sleep in the little two-bedroom ranch with the knotty pine paneling again.

Superstorm Sandy slammed into the house on Oct. 29, 2012 and took much of it with her. The back and rear sides of the house are still open to the wind and water of Barnegat Bay. The storm tore them away.

“The storm took everything,” Majeski said.

And now 50 Good Luck Drive is a shambles. The front screen door opens and shuts in the southeast wind coming off the bay. What Sandy didn’t take, vandals and thieves did.

Berkeley Township police had cordoned off devastated Good Luck Point to all but homeowners with proof of residence after the storm. But even that didn’t help.

The thieves came by boat in the dark.

“They came at night, with no lights on the boats,” he said. “They pillaged just about everything they could take,” Majeski said.
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Majeski had put up a makeshift extension for the side bulkhead to prevent any further erosion from the storm. It was made of two-by-fours. Thieves cut the boards and took them.

The little house was born in the 1950s, when a doctor built it as a vacation home. Majeski’s aunt bought it in 1975. The house was one of the first to be winterized on vulnerable Good Luck Point, which juts out into Barnegat Bay.

Majeski’s aunt moved away after the December 1992 Nor’easter, frightened by the bay water that came up to the back door.

“She felt a little water next to the doorstop,” he said. “That was the worst it had ever gotten. That’s what helped her to move. She said, ‘No more.’ That was it.”

But the house stayed in the family.

“It was a good place to go to,” Majesksi said. “We took our vacations there. When the boys came, they had a good place to be in the summer.”

50 Good Luck Drive was long paid off and had no mortgage. Ed and his wife Stephanie - who live in Garwood - did not have flood insurance.

“I think a lot of people were in a similar situation,” said Majeski, who is an environmental manager with the Linden-Roselle Sewerage Authority. “My aunt never had it. If you had a mortgage, you had to have flood insurance.”

And what’s his answer to critics who bash homeowners who had no flood insurance?

“I can’t argue with them,” he said.

Majeski at first considered rebuilding after Sandy. But since it was a secondary home, the couple did not qualify for any state or federal funds. And they are weary of New Jersey’s high taxes and political corruption, he said.

So demolition is the next step. But that doesn’t happen easily.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will provide demolition money for a very small fraction of Sandy-battered Bayville homes. Originally there were over 400 homes on the list. But FEMA later slashed the number of homes to 22. Homes had to be in “imminent danger of collapse” to be considered.

And the money has not filtered down yet, Majeski said.

He is annoyed at Township Council President James J. Byrnes for suggesting the township set a deadline for home demolitions at the July 28 council meeting.

“There’s still a lot of houses that haven’t been opened or touched,” Byrnes said. ”By this time you’ve (homeowners) gotten enough money for demolition.”

But Township Administrator Christopher Reid advised holding off on a deadline, since there are state programs in place for demolition costs.

“I’m not sure if now is the time to set a timeline,” Reid said. ”You have asbestos issues, hazardous substance issues. Maybe we should gather more information.”

”Fifty-one percent...the house has gotta come down,” said Byrnes.

“He has no patience, no compassion,” Majeski said. “There are still programs we are waiting on.”

There’s no question it’s dangerous to be inside 50 Good Luck Drive. The floors are coming up, broken glass and tiles are everywhere. The concrete slab in the back where the porch used to be has collapsed.

“I think the roof is the only thing holding the house up,” Majeski said.

The family has tried to clean up what they could.

“Look, I found a frying pan,” said 11-year-old Erik as he and his brother Daniel, 10, clambered over what used to be their bedroom, the one that faced the bay. Sandy blew the back and side walls away. A gray sweatshirt and a pair of brown pants still hang in the closet.

Majeski is resigned to leaving the family home of 40 years. But he worries about what will happen to the Jersey Shore and the middle class. They will disappear, forced out by the high cost of rebuilding.

“Only the very few and the rich will get to stay on the water,” he said. “It’s the end of an era. It’s only going to be McMansions down here. “