N.J. second-home owners in limbo a year after Sandy: Thanx to Bank Of America and Tower insurance my house sits empty and I pick Cotton to survive in Florida

comments

N.J. second-home owners in limbo a year after Sandy

1 / 14

Hurricane Sandy: News photography by The Star-Ledger's Andy Mills

MANTOLOKING Search and rescue personnel work to clear a beachfront home heavily damaged by Hurricane Sandy.

Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger

Print

By The Associated Press The Associated Press
on October 26, 2013 at 11:20 AM, updated October 26, 2013 at 11:35 AM

Email

More Sandy Coverage (with photo)

• N.J. second-home owners in limbo a year after Sandy
• N.J.'s low-income households still reeling from Hurricane Sandy: Study
• Editorial: Cheers and Jeers for October 27
• Iconic Hurricane Sandy image still brings pride, pain to Union Beach man
• N.J. still needs $28.4 billion to fully recover from Hurricane Sandy, study says

All Stories |

STAFFORD TOWNSHIP — The Jersey Shore's vacation bungalows and cottages have for decades staked out little plots of paradise where families who scrimped and saved could while away summer evenings, parents having drinks on the deck and kids working at an ice cream stand or stealing a first kiss under a boardwalk.
Now, nearly a year after Sandy blasted through, countless middle-class families whose tiny vacation homes were once the place to make precious memories are finding them to be a financial albatross.
While billions of dollars in federal relief have helped primary homeowners rebuild after the storm, second homeowners find themselves stuck in limbo: not eligible for enough money to rebuild or even demolish their homes while they remain on the hook for mortgage payments and fatter flood insurance fees for houses they can't even use.
"We thought we were good for the community, and to suddenly be labeled this second homeowner like it was a derogatory statement, it was like a smack in the face," said Benita Kiernan, a retired nurse who with her retired New York City firefighter husband sank every spare cent into a cottage on an inlet in Stafford Township.
"We became the scarlet-S second homeowners."
For decades, the Jersey shore has been a place where police officers, plumbers, teachers and other working-class families can save up and put a down payment on a small beach bungalow to spend their summers "down the shore," as it is called. In many cases the properties are passed down through families.
Even before Sandy tore the Kiernans' home down to a wooden shell, it was not the palatial estate conjured by the phrase "vacation home." But even then the modest 1,000-square-foot house had been a financial stretch — the family skipped dinners out and vacations to be able to afford it.

Hurricane Sandy destruction one year after the storm in Union Beach.