SEA BRIGHT — Sea Bright mayor Dina Long admitted she broke down when she first saw the sand several feet deep along the borough’s downtown and most of the storefronts damaged.
“I did start to cry,” Long said. She called the damage catastrophic.
C. Read Murphy, a township councilman and borough deputy director of emergency management, said “the businesses in this town are totally destroyed.”
Heavy equipment, including front-end loaders, were clearing away sand that had washed onto Ocean Avenue and in some places was more than 4 feet deep.
Long urged residents not to return home because the borough was still dealing with numerous natural gas leaks from broken underground pipes.
Sea Bright had been under a mandatory evacuation order since 4 p.m. Sunday, however, Long knew that many people had not left.
“I spent two hours on the phone (Monday) pleading with people to leave,” Long said. She said police and firefighters had to rescue 11 people from homes on Monday.
David Coniff and eight friends thought it would be fun to ride out the storm in a third floor apartment. This morning he was not so sure it was a good idea.
“It was terrifying. We saw a steamroller swept away, a truck swept away,” Coniff, 26, said this morning.
The nine friends awoke today to deep sand covering Ocean Avenue, with power lines down and spouts of natural gas shooting up through the sand from broken pipelines.
They came down from the apartment above a hardware store to discover the storefront was gone and water had washed through the store, heavily damaging it.
“All the storefronts are blown out. Houses collapsed. We saw cars float by like they were toys,” said Joe Tripodi. The 28-year-old borough resident spent the night wearing one of only two life vests that the nine friends had with them.
This morning, the group walked over the sand left by the storm, carefully avoiding downed power lines and natural gas leaks.
They walked to the bridge leading into Rumson and they were not alone.
Coniff said he and his friend saw many others walking out of the borough.
Mike Cramer, 47, and his fiancée, Deneen Zotto, stayed in their second-floor condominium in the yacht harbor complex in Sea Bright, thinking the storm would not be any worse than Tropical Storm Irene.
“It was horrible. I don’t think there was a store that wasn’t blown out. The worst part was the darkness. You could only see shapes float by,” Kramer said.
What did he see go by?
“Boats, sheds, cabanas, dozens of cabanas and refrigerators,” he said.
Coniff told of fears he and his friends felt during the night.
“When the power went out and the fire department sirens went off and the waves were crashing into the building, I felt like we made a mistake to stay,” Coniff said.
Police were not letting anybody walk over the bridge from Rumson into the borough, but some people were walking in from the north end of the borough on its border with the Highlands.
Link to Source: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/10/sea_bright_mayor_damage_from_h.html
Sorry Fred, they didn't mention anything about the fishin' or your hotel room......just about the people that lost their homes and their businesses and the struggle to make the area safe enough for people to return.
