Montclair State University student Noah Smith interviews owners of some of the hardest-hit businesses in Sea Bright and the volunteers who spent last weekend helping them out. (Thanks to Debbie Galant of the New Jersey News Commons for passing this along.)
The mayor and council of Sea Bright took to the stage of the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank Monday night to accommodate a crowd that would not have fit into the town’s borough hall. (Photo by Wil Fulton. Click to enlarge)
By WIL FULTON
It was anything but business as usual for Sea Bright residents as they gathered for their borough council’s bimonthly meeting Monday night.
Stoked by concerns that their homes and businesses might not be rebuilt in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy’s extensive damage, dozens filled seats near the stage at Red Banks Count Basie Theatre to pepper elected officials with questions about everything from stray transformers to the fate of their town.
Here’s a compelling video made in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Shot by Adam Worth of Asbury Park, it includes footage of Sea Bright and the Red Bank-based Rebuild/Recover effort. Worth also made a fascinating time-lapse video of Hurricane Irene in 2011.
Cono Trezza in his newly built pizzeria last February, and as it appeared five days after the storm, below. (Photo below by Peter Lindner. Click to enlarge)
By WIL FULTON
For owners of Sea Bright businesses damaged by Hurricane Sandy, the rebuilding process has just begun. As they assess the damages and take steps toward the recovery of their livelihoods, each has his or her own distinct post-Sandy tale to tell. redbankgreen spoke to four of them this week about their plans in the aftermath of the cataclysmic events that ravaged through their beach community. Here are their stories.
Sea Bright Pizza:
Cono Trezza faces an uphill battle, like most property owners in Sea Bright, though he is meeting it with spirit and vigor that some might find surprising, given the state of his business.
I want to get back as soon as possible, Trezza said. If my ovens were working right now Id start cooking pizzas for everyone that’s out here.
Bulldozers redistributing sand recovered from the streets of Sea Bright on the borough beach Wednesday morning. Below, contractor Mike Stavola with Governor Chris Christie last week. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
It’s been dubbed ‘Mount Sandy,’ and in its enormity, it looms as one of many reminders of the woes inflicted on Sea Bright by Hurricane Sandy on October 29.
We’re talking about a pile of sand so wide and tall upwards of 60 feet, says the contractor who built it that it blocks the view of the ocean from nearly any spot in the municipal beach parking lot.
But the sandpile also stands as a gritty reminder of the rapid progress being made in restoring out the town, while prompting questions about the future of the beaches.
As seen in two views along Ocean Avenue Wednesday morning, passenger vehicles must share the road with earth movers, backhoes and dumptrucks. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
After more than two weeks in lockdown to everyone but residents and restoration workers, Sea Bright took down the barricades Wednesday morning.
With the opening of checkpoints at the Rumson Road entry to town and the northern and southern borders on Ocean Avenue, traffic was trickling through the narrow sandbar borough shortly after dawn.
The Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge drawbridge was also back in service, having had its electricity shut off as a precautionary measure in advance of Hurricane Sandy.
Now, officials are bracing for a possible influx of gawkers eager to eyeball the destroyed beach clubs and downtown up close.
Prompted by a request from Mayor Dina Long and Councilman Read Murphy to keep Ocean Avenue closed to through traffic, Governor Chris Christie summons his transportation secretary during a visit to the borough Friday. Below, Christie tours a National Guard galley set up as part of a relief camp. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
On the first day since Hurricane Sandy that building contractors were allowed into town, Governor Christie Christie visited Sea Bright Friday to call attention to the lingering devastation along New Jersey’s coastline as the rest of the state staggers back toward normalcy.
Touring an encampment of National Guard tents erected in the municipal parking lot to serve emergency volunteers, utility contractors and, soon, residents, Christie said there’s a lot of work to do at the Shore, and no one should expect it all to be completed by Memorial Day.
“By Monday, I think, things are going to be, for most people in the state, back to normal,” he told borough Engineer Jaclyn Flor in an impromptu chat. But for hard-hit places like Sea Bright, “first we have to sit down and talk about what we want normal to be, and what you want it to look like, and then we have to go to the federal government and say to them we need some money to get it that way.”
Peter Warshaw at Fair Haven’s National Night Out festivities in 2009. (Click to enlarge)
Governor Chris Christie has nominated Peter Warshaw Jr. to succeed Luis Valentin as Monmouth County Prosecutor, according to reports by the Associated Press and Asbury Park Press.