One year after Hurricane Sandy, New Jersey's forgotten western shore struggles to rebuild
By Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on October 25, 2013 at 5:33 AM, updated October 25, 2013 at 4:04 PM
A smiling Gov. Chris Christie leaned across a broad blue banner imprinted with the words, “New Jersey, Stronger Than the Storm” and cut the ribbon on a brand new boardwalk in Belmar.
“The biggest reason that I want to come and open these boardwalks,” he told the crowd in May, “is because I want New Jersey, the region and the country to know that New Jersey has come back.”
A hundred miles to the southwest, on the other side of the state, Mike Coombs crouched in the palomino-gold meadow grass. It was not going to be a good day for farming. His back ached from the shift in temperature. A brisk breeze from the west had turned east and would be bringing moisture in off the Delaware Bay, and a wet “medda,” as Mike called it in the faintly Southern twang of this part of New Jersey, meant he wouldn’t be cutting hay anytime soon.
Three thousand acres of salt hay, and all but 500 were thrashed and drowned by last October’s storm. The surge from the Delaware Bay pushed mountains of water up the estuary’s tributaries, slashed levees, smashed through sand berms and flooded meadow and marsh; it tore through homes and businesses and shifted so much sand it clogged rivers, creeks and streams.
A year ago this week, Hurricane Sandy slammed into the Mid-Atlantic, and while much of the evidence has been razed and removed from gleamingly rebuilt towns all along the eastern shore, along the western shore it’s like Sandy never moved on at all.
In the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in state history, two New Jerseys were left behind. The people of one coast reached for
recovery. They were lauded for their stoutness, touted by politicians for their fortitude and inundated with gifts and money by a sympathetic public and a responsive state government. Shops, restaurants and summer rental agencies all along the Atlantic shore looked to rebound — millions of tourists, after all, depended on them. So did a large part of New Jersey’s economy.
Those on the other side of the state, on the western shore, lurched into winter, stumbled into spring and dragged themselves through summer largely out of sight and out of mind. Cumberland County, the second-poorest county in New Jersey, was declared a disaster area after the hurricane, but was not named one of the nine counties eligible to receive the bulk of $1.8 billion in federal aid.
Trenton listens, but nothing gets done. That’s what they’re saying in Down Jersey, as the people here refer to this part of the state.
Stronger NJ revitalization money?
Zero.
Stronger NJ Business grants?
Zilch.
Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Elevation funds?
Zip.
Last week, the Christie administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced 32 beach and dune construction projects along 44 miles of New Jersey coastline — none of them along the Delaware Bay.
“On the Atlantic coast, there’s a $40 million boardwalk, huge beach replenishment, waterways cleaned. Down here, it’s a dead zone,” said Bob Campbell, mayor of Downe Township. “We don’t qualify for anything.”
In the 12 months since Hurricane Sandy, Gov. Christie, President Obama, Vice President Biden, even Britain’s Prince Harry have all visited the eastern shore of New Jersey, but not the western shore. Christie alone has made dozens of trips to the barrier islands — six in one week — to Brigantine, Belmar and Beach Haven; to Sayreville, Sea Bright and Seaside Heights. He helped open Margaritaville, the new $35 million casino in Atlantic City, rode the tram in Wildwood and strolled the Washington Street Mall in Cape May.
But along the 93.5 miles of Delaware Bayshore that stretches from Salem County’s Elsinboro to Cape May Point, neither the governor nor the lieutenant governor has been seen. Not in Fortescue or Gandy’s Beach; not in Bayside, Bay Point or Money Island; not in Greenwich, or at King’s Crab Ranch and Marina or at the historic Charlesworth Hotel, which remains uninhabitable.
“All we’re asking for is, could you please just come out to the Bayshore communities?” said Joe Derella, Freeholder Director for Cumberland County. “I don’t think that’s unreasonable. I think that’s fair because they’ve been devastated.”
Part of Cumberland County’s dilemma is that it has suffered one blow of hard luck after another. Nine New Jersey counties met the federal threshold of 1 percent tax assessment losses, and the governor had no part in determining that. Cumberland came up just short, though Derella says four of the county’s Bayshore townships lost between 8 and 10 percent.
Where state aid is concerned, Gov. Christie says he’s had to make difficult choices, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t aware of the struggles of Cumberland County’s residents.
“I understand they suffered some damage there, and that they have needs going forward, but they suffered significantly less damage than those other nine counties,” Christie said last week in an interview with The Star-Ledger. “And so I understand that everybody wants to be attended to with that same level of attention — that’s not possible. And so I make these decisions based upon the level of devastation and the degree of need, and that’s where we spend most of our time. That being
“The biggest reason that I want to come and open these boardwalks,” he told the crowd in May, “is because I want New Jersey, the region and the country to know that New Jersey has come back.”
A hundred miles to the southwest, on the other side of the state, Mike Coombs crouched in the palomino-gold meadow grass. It was not going to be a good day for farming. His back ached from the shift in temperature. A brisk breeze from the west had turned east and would be bringing moisture in off the Delaware Bay, and a wet “medda,” as Mike called it in the faintly Southern twang of this part of New Jersey, meant he wouldn’t be cutting hay anytime soon.
Three thousand acres of salt hay, and all but 500 were thrashed and drowned by last October’s storm. The surge from the Delaware Bay pushed mountains of water up the estuary’s tributaries, slashed levees, smashed through sand berms and flooded meadow and marsh; it tore through homes and businesses and shifted so much sand it clogged rivers, creeks and streams.
A year ago this week, Hurricane Sandy slammed into the Mid-Atlantic, and while much of the evidence has been razed and removed from gleamingly rebuilt towns all along the eastern shore, along the western shore it’s like Sandy never moved on at all.
In the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in state history, two New Jerseys were left behind. The people of one coast reached for
recovery. They were lauded for their stoutness, touted by politicians for their fortitude and inundated with gifts and money by a sympathetic public and a responsive state government. Shops, restaurants and summer rental agencies all along the Atlantic shore looked to rebound — millions of tourists, after all, depended on them. So did a large part of New Jersey’s economy.
Those on the other side of the state, on the western shore, lurched into winter, stumbled into spring and dragged themselves through summer largely out of sight and out of mind. Cumberland County, the second-poorest county in New Jersey, was declared a disaster area after the hurricane, but was not named one of the nine counties eligible to receive the bulk of $1.8 billion in federal aid.
Trenton listens, but nothing gets done. That’s what they’re saying in Down Jersey, as the people here refer to this part of the state.
Stronger NJ revitalization money?
Zero.
Stronger NJ Business grants?
Zilch.
Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Elevation funds?
Zip.
Last week, the Christie administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced 32 beach and dune construction projects along 44 miles of New Jersey coastline — none of them along the Delaware Bay.
“On the Atlantic coast, there’s a $40 million boardwalk, huge beach replenishment, waterways cleaned. Down here, it’s a dead zone,” said Bob Campbell, mayor of Downe Township. “We don’t qualify for anything.”
In the 12 months since Hurricane Sandy, Gov. Christie, President Obama, Vice President Biden, even Britain’s Prince Harry have all visited the eastern shore of New Jersey, but not the western shore. Christie alone has made dozens of trips to the barrier islands — six in one week — to Brigantine, Belmar and Beach Haven; to Sayreville, Sea Bright and Seaside Heights. He helped open Margaritaville, the new $35 million casino in Atlantic City, rode the tram in Wildwood and strolled the Washington Street Mall in Cape May.
But along the 93.5 miles of Delaware Bayshore that stretches from Salem County’s Elsinboro to Cape May Point, neither the governor nor the lieutenant governor has been seen. Not in Fortescue or Gandy’s Beach; not in Bayside, Bay Point or Money Island; not in Greenwich, or at King’s Crab Ranch and Marina or at the historic Charlesworth Hotel, which remains uninhabitable.
“All we’re asking for is, could you please just come out to the Bayshore communities?” said Joe Derella, Freeholder Director for Cumberland County. “I don’t think that’s unreasonable. I think that’s fair because they’ve been devastated.”
Part of Cumberland County’s dilemma is that it has suffered one blow of hard luck after another. Nine New Jersey counties met the federal threshold of 1 percent tax assessment losses, and the governor had no part in determining that. Cumberland came up just short, though Derella says four of the county’s Bayshore townships lost between 8 and 10 percent.
Where state aid is concerned, Gov. Christie says he’s had to make difficult choices, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t aware of the struggles of Cumberland County’s residents.
“I understand they suffered some damage there, and that they have needs going forward, but they suffered significantly less damage than those other nine counties,” Christie said last week in an interview with The Star-Ledger. “And so I understand that everybody wants to be attended to with that same level of attention — that’s not possible. And so I make these decisions based upon the level of devastation and the degree of need, and that’s where we spend most of our time. That being
No comments:
Post a Comment