A worker removes debris and prepares to board up the storm-ravaged Bayside Grill in Keyport on Nov. 2, four days after superstorm Sandy rolled through the Bayshore area. More photos, page 6. ERIC SUCAR staff Many Bayshore residents and town officials spent this past week counting their blessings, weighing relatively minor inconveniences such as power outages and service disruptions against the massive scale of loss and devastation felt by neighboring communities in the wake of superstorm Sandy. Richard Fazio, a longtime Keyport resident who spent Nov. 3 surveying the collapsed restaurants, splintered boardwalks and sunken yachts that now litter his hometown, said he is amazed the Oct. 29 surge left his house virtually unharmed.
“We complain that there was no electricity for a week and the cable’s out,” he said, looking over the remains of the borough’s Steamboat Dock Museum.
“But looking at homes and businesses like this, it makes you realize we really lucked out when you consider some people have to start from scratch.
ERIC SUCAR staff “I have one neighbor who not only lost part of his home, but his entire business. His tow trucks were inside and they got taken out. He lost the garage space; he lost everything. Plus part of the house was damaged. You can’t go to work and get relief, you can’t go home and get a relief. It’s constant.”
In the next town over, Union Beach residents were busy digging, pumping and literally clawing their way out of the mess Sandy left behind. Some officials estimate that as many as 250 homes are now uninhabitable in the borough, following a powerful storm surge that completely destroyed bayside structures and flooded for miles inland.
Union Beach resident Bill Heller, in an email on Nov. 2, said a 5-foot wave crashed through the ground floor of his home, destroying his heating system and forcing his family to relocate to a local hotel.
ERIC SUCAR staff The borough, he said, was utterly changed.
“Sandy hit Union Beach as hard as Katrina hit the Gulf,” he said. “It’s a war zone here.
“You need to get through a National Guard checkpoint and then a police checkpoint to get to your home,” he added. “It’s marshal law in Union Beach, but that will keep the looters at bay. We thank [those keeping the town safe] at every opportunity. They have done and are doing a great job.”
Union Beach Councilman Lou Andreuzzi, a borough resident for nearly 35 years, said Sandy was simply unprecedented.
“I’ve just never seen anything like it,” he said. “It surpassed the worst storms we’ve ever had here by more than a foot. When I walked out of my house, and I’m nowhere near the water, I had to walk through four, five feet of flooding. It was up to my chest, and I’m six feet tall.
Clockwise from top: The Keyport Steamboat Dock Museum is in ruins following the Oct. 29 superstorm. The dining room of Ye Cottage Inn in Keyport is now open to the elements. Popular Keyport eatery Hot Dog Bobs was razed to the ground during superstorm Sandy, and the remains of Captain John’s Fishing & Cruising Pier stand in Raritan Bay, off Keyport, four days after the storm. ERIC SUCAR staff “We had catfish on my street. I’ve never seen it that way, I just can’t even describe it.”
Hazlet Mayor David Tinker, taking a break on Nov. 6 from his ongoing efforts to have power restored to the entirety of the township, said his town’s troubles pale in comparison to the devastation suffered elsewhere.
KEITH HEUMILLER “Other than power outages, downed trees and a couple of flooded houses, we didn’t have any major structural damage,” he said. “There are 1,463 homes still without power, and needless to say the residents are getting a little antsy…but overall Hazlet did not see the kind of damage experienced by Keyport, Union Beach and other Bayshore towns.”
Since the storm, Tinker said the township has been working closely with Union Beach, collecting supplies and providing everything from clothing and food to emergency service support.
Hazlet business owners are stepping up, he said, coordinating relief services and establishing distribution and service centers for displaced Bayshore residents.
The parking lot of the vacant Bradlees building at Poole Avenue and Route 36 is going to be used to house FEMA trailers that will provide temporary housing for the hundreds of now-homeless Union Beach residents, he said.
“People in Union Beach aren’t worrying about power or cable. They’re worrying about where their next meal is going to come from, how to make ends meet, where they are going to live. We’re doing everything we can to help them stand up.”
In Keyport, where as of Nov. 6 nearly 200 residents were still holed up in a shelter at Keyport Central School following the evacuation of two borough senior citizen complexes during the storm, borough officials and residents are giving what they can to Union Beach even while they seek and receive support themselves.
“Large areas have to be cordoned off over there, so we’ve provided police assistance along with Hazlet,” said Mayor Robert McLeod.
“Any amount of mutual aid that can be established at a time like this is a positive.”
Keyport Police Chief George Casaletto said that his department is providing two officers each day to assist in Union Beach, along with officers from as far away as Florida and Nevada.
“They are going to need help for the long haul, so we’re here to help them for the long haul,” he said.
Andreuzzi said that so far, the response from neighboring towns had been overwhelming.
“The reaction and the help is just spectacular. You couldn’t ask for more,” he said. “I am very lucky to live in this town, in this Bayshore area. So many people are even putting their own family stuff aside to work for the greater good. I can’t think of a word that could describe how it makes me feel.
“From around the area, from the around the country, so many different groups and organizations are helping us. Religious groups, civic groups, kids, they’re all willing to do anything you need. I’ve gotten calls from so many different officials, saying ‘anything you need, just call.’ They’ve been here. They’ve been with us. It’s just unbelievable. There couldn’t have been a greater reaction.”
Meanwhile, municipal officials and residents throughout the Bayshore are doing their best to restore a sense of normalcy to their own towns, one step at a time.
In Keyport, McLeod and Casaletto said the main priority is re-establishing the two senior complexes and getting residents back into their homes. Following that will be the long, difficult process of rebuilding and reopening the many borough businesses that were destroyed in the storm. How and when that will happen, said McLeod, will be up to the respective owners.
“The borough will cooperate with them to the fullest extent possible,” he said.
Casaletto said he is proud of the town’s resourcefulness during and following the storm, which helped prevent serious injuries and provide relief to residents as quickly as possible.
“We were ahead of the game; we knew what was coming,” said Casaletto, who attributed his department’s level of preparedness to a close working relationship with the borough’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM).
Since the storm, he said he and other borough responders have been working 20-hour days to maintain order and continue providing relief services to Keyport and residents of other Bayshore towns.
“This is what I trained my whole life for,” he said. “It’s the World Series, it’s the Stanley Cup. And we’re winning.”
Casaletto also lauded the volunteer efforts of Keyport residents, including area youths helping out at the Central School shelter. McLeod echoed his sentiments, saying the community response from Keyport and other towns had been amazing.
“There has just been a phenomenal outpouring of community assistance,” he said. “The volunteer turnout is absolutely phenomenal, and the donations being made are very generous. It did really bring the community together.”
Significant volunteer efforts are also under way in Middletown, according to Township OEM Coordinator Charles Rogers, as area residents and volunteer organizations from Virginia, Pennsylvania and even Oklahoma are working along with the Red Cross to clear debris, clean houses, pump cellars and distribute household supplies and goods.
“Any assistance that’s needed for those folks, it’s there for them,” said Rogers. “The main concern is safety of the people, helping them get back to a normal life.”
But in the face of another storm — a nor’easter projected to hit the area on Nov. 7 — Bayshore municipalities were faced with additional complications, as well as a stark reminder of the lessons learned during Sandy.
Parts of Middletown were under a mandatory evacuation order on Wednesday, and in anticipation of this, Rogers emphasized the importance of following municipal orders in the face of a storm.
“The Bayshore area at this point is fragile; a lot of dunes are gone. It wouldn’t be a safe situation if a nor’easter does come,” he said.
“I try not to inconvenience people as much as possible, but when the time comes and we need to make that decision, the residents need to listen.”
In every Bayshore town Sandy seems to have proven the worth of communal support. Area residents, officials and emergency responders — all of whom share the common bond of the Raritan — recognize the communal force of the bay, the source of so much adversity and so much beneficence.
Tinker, before resuming his talks with the power company, said the most important message people should take away from this superstorm is the fact that it’s a long, long way from being over.
“The people of Union Beach are going to be displaced for at least a year. When this fades from the headlines, they are still going to be living out of trailers in the Bradlees parking lot. We can’t just forget about them.”