Counter-clockwise from top right: The beach at Bayshore Waterfront Park prior to the Oct. 29 superstorm. Post-storm photos show damage from Sandy, which wiped out portions of the Henry Hudson Trail, destroyed a footbridge, and devastated the Atlantic Highlands marina near the entrance to the trail. Monmouth County Park System officials project that there is a lot of work ahead as repairs begin on the estimated $8 million in damage to park facilities as a result of superstorm Sandy.
Ken Thoman, park resource manager for the county park system, said at a Feb. 5 Greentable meeting that the most significant damage occurred at the waterfront parks, which will be the county’s first priority.
“As soon as this happened we regrouped and said, ‘What are we going to do?’ Coming into work, a lot of our park managers were just overwhelmed,” Thoman said, displaying photos of the damage, which includes destroyed bridges, wiped-out trails, and thousands of downed trees that have to be cleared.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” he told those who attended the meeting about county parks and trails, held at the Thompson Park Visitors Center in Lincroft.
Restoring Seven Presidents Oceanfront Park in Long Branch and Bayshore Waterfront Park in Belford are the top priorities, he said, as the parks are a source of income for the county.
At Bayshore Waterfront Park, Thoman said, a new trail that had just been installed was completely wiped away.
A before-and-after photo showed that what was once a green walkway along the waterfront is now just sand.
Significant repairs are also being made to the Monmouth Cove Marina, an 11-acre parcel at Bayshore Waterfront Park that contains 154 boat slips, floating docks, and more.
“The marina was absolutely destroyed,” Thoman said.
“We thought that after the 1992 nor’easter we put the marina up high enough. All of our electricity and infrastructure went up over 9 feet, but it didn’t work. We thought that we planned ahead, but now we may be waterproofing. It is going to be an interesting challenge.”
At Seven Presidents Oceanfront Park, the 38-acre site along Ocean Avenue in Long Branch, damage totals $1.3 million.
“The entire infrastructure was compromised,” Thoman said.
“We were lucky that the pavilion wasn’t severely damaged, but everything else was. Our maintenance facility was destroyed and our skate park was destroyed.”
Thoman said the priority is to rebuild the dunes throughout the entire park before anything else.
“It’s going to be a different type of park now,” he said. “The mantra now is dunes, dunes, dunes, so the first thing I was responsible for was to get the dunes back in place.” The Henry Hudson Trail, a 24-mile paved trail that traverses 100 acres of Monmouth County, sustained more than $1 million in damage, which has yet to be repaired. The northern trail section that runs from the Aberdeen/Keyport border to the Highlands remains closed.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY PARK SYSTEM According to the county website, the trail between the Atlantic Highlands Marina and the Highlands border at Popamora Point will remain closed indefinitely due to storm damage.
Some additional sections of the northern extension through the Bayshore are closed due to bridge damage, the website states.
The southern section of the trail, which runs through Freehold, Marlboro and Aberdeen, has reopened.
While progress is being made, officials are still assessing the damage to other parks in the western part of the county. These mainly sustained tree damage.
“We are still recovering from [Tropical Storm] Irene in the western side of the county,” Thoman said. “We are just now getting out of that phase. Now we have this.”
Monmouth County Freeholder Lillian
Burry, park liaison, said that most of the cost of repairing the damage would be reimbursed through insurance coverage.
“We are quite dependent on the insurance company and we are getting a good amount of that money back,” Burry said in an interview.
The county is also working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), but Burry said the federal agency will not cover tree damage.
“What isn’t covered the county will supplement,” she said.
“The tree damage is being remediated in-house through our shade-tree commission and the public works department.”
As the freeholders prepare the 2013 county budget, Burry said they are working closely with the park system to ensure funding for needed repairs.
“The parks are seasonal and we want to be ready for when the season starts,” Burry said.
“Some of the things that we do will be patchwork and then there will be long-range plans to either replace or restore [the parks to their] original state.”