Former President Jimmy Carter helps to rebuild a Union Beach home destroyed by the superstorm. President Carter and his wife Rosalynn joined some 150 Habitat for Humanity volunteers who repaired or rebuilt 16 Sandy-damaged homes throughout the borough on Oct. 12. ERIC SUCAR The contrast could not have been clearer. On one side of Prospect Avenue in Union Beach, former President Jimmy Carter and dozens of volunteers drove nails and raised walls, attempting to resurrect a storm-damaged home from the rubble of Sandy.
Across the street, a crumbling home was still waiting for the bulldozer nearly a year after the storm.
“I’m glad this came around,” nearby homeowner Ryan Ross said during Habitat for Humanity’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project event in Union Beach on Oct. 12.
“It’s a good sign that people are willing to come and help out, especially when insurance companies aren’t. But it’s also bringing attention to the fact that there is so much left undone here. People are fighting every day to get back.”
U.S. Army veteran Rigo Gutierrez (l) and Navy veteran John Relyea paint a room in the Sandy-damaged Drybread family home in Union Beach on Oct. 12. The event marked the 30th anniversary of the Carters’ work project, which builds and repairs homes in various cities throughout the world for one week each year.
This year, after stops in Oakland, San Jose, Denver and New York City, the Carters joined hundreds of Habitat volunteers working to fix 14 Sandy-damaged homes in the borough and to begin rebuilding two others.
While directly aiding 16 Union Beach families, the project was also designed to help raise awareness for the estimated 500 other families who have yet to return home and the tens of thousands throughout Monmouth and Ocean counties who remain displaced.
Carter’s visit concluded a three-day Habitat effort in Union Beach involving 650 volunteers who shadowed the flood of donated labor and goods that first began in the immediate aftermath of the storm. The former president said it is these kinds of efforts that can make such a difference for needy individuals and communities throughout the world.
“People are the same wherever we go,” Carter said during a press conference. “There are always volunteers who come forward when they find out that they can do something useful, and it doesn’t cost them anything except a little bit of care for others and a little bit of love for their fellow human beings.”
Volunteers, local homeowners and Habitat officials acknowledged, however, that the Jersey Shore’s troubles are a long way from being resolved.
“The recovery and rebuilding effort is a multiyear process and we know that,” Habit for Humanity International CEO Jonathan Reckford said. “That’s why we want to come back later, when the cameras are gone, to try to bring attention back to the fact that there is a lot of rebuilding yet to do.”
Carter spent the morning dressed in jeans and a work shirt, hammering nails alongside dozens of volunteers helping to rebuild Ernie Lamberson’s Prospect Avenue home.
Lamberson, a Vietnam veteran living in temporary housing at Fort Monmouth and drawing his income from Social Security disability benefits, didn’t have a mortgage or flood insurance on his 75-year-old bungalow when it was destroyed by nearly 7 feet of flooding last year.
Thanks to a no-interest loan from Habitat and grant money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Lamberson said the 30-year mortgage on his new home will likely cost about $200 a month. He said he is looking forward to its completion in January and eventually seeing things return to “the way they used to be.”
“When I can walk my dogs down the trail, and I can stand in my own backyard [I’ll be happy],” he said. “It will be nice to see all the other people here be normal again, but that’s going to take a while.”
Across the street, Ross stood with his fiancé and watched Carter and other volunteers install frames on top of Lamberson’s new 14- foot-tall base flood foundation. After losing his own house during the storm, Ross lived in a rental in Keyport while “arguing” with his insurance company every day for eight months.
One of the “lucky ones” to have had flood insurance on his home, Ross said he had to work with a private adjuster to ultimately recoup an additional $40,000 in losses and complete construction on his new home in July.
Ross said it was good to see Lamberson receive help, after he and countless other residents were turned down for federal grants over “stupid things” like typos and lost applications.
“There are so many loopholes to kick you out of the grant, and very little to get you in,” he said.
Vincent Pagano, part of a volunteer team from the Middlesex County College Veterans and Service Members Association, said individuals can often provide help quicker and with less bureaucracy that government agencies.
“Whether it’s putting a bandage on or putting a door up, somebody is going to need help with something,” said Pagano, an Afghanistan veteran who helped to repair the Drybread family’s storm-damaged home off Union Avenue.
“Sometimes all you need is an extra set of hands.”
Union Beach Mayor Paul Smith said the borough has received about 150,000 hours of volunteer help since Sandy, and the supplemental repairs, demolitions and donated supplies have made a “world of difference” to the small town.
“It’s way far from over. But if you look around, it’s getting better,” Smith said. “I’ve had people tell me that our town is way ahead of others.”
After visiting New Orleans, Haiti, India, Thailand and other disaster areas with the work project in recent years, Carter acknowledged that “every local community thinks it is probably hit the worst.”
And while our nation continues to face a wide swath of various challenges on both the national and local level, Carter said America’s strength lies in the volunteers and advocates who continue to step up and make a difference.
“Our nation faces a lot of crises in politics and finance and economics and jobs lost and disasters like the one that hit on this sea coast,” he said. “But America has a way of producing citizens who can repair any kind of damage and meet any kind of challenge.”
The Union Beach project kicked off a 12- month effort by the Habitat for Humanity of Monmouth County to repair or rebuild 100 Sandy-damaged homes in its coverage area, which runs from the Raritan Bay to Long Branch.