Hurricane Sandy Destroys Long Beach Island

Writing this hub hurts a little, but I need to vent and let out my feelings and show some photos of the devastation to the Island I grew up on and the Island that is only a few miles from my home.

Long Beach Island and all the barrier Islands along the coast of New Jersey will never look the same. Hurricane Sandy destroys Long Beach Island and so many other barrier Islands along the Eastern Seaboard.

The Atlantic Ocean has swallowed up not only material things such as homes and personal belongings, but our beautiful sandy beaches that New Jersey is so well known for.

It really saddens me to have to write is hub simply because Long Beach Island was the Island I grew up on ever since I was a young child. The memories I have will never go away, but Hurricane Sandy took the Island by storm and had no regrets of the destruction and devastation it caused to Long Beach Island and all the other barrier Islands from the South and up through the North of our once beautiful Coast line.

Where I am standing on the beautiful beach of Ship Bottom was only days before that same beach was washed out to sea.

Over the summer the Government spent millions of dollars to refurbish all the beaches South of Ship Bottom. The sand was pumped from the Ocean 5 miles off the coast. What they did was a sure thing that no waves would breach that wall of sand, but Hurricane Sandy proved us wrong.

Many residents were against the beach restoration do to the fact it would block some of their Ocean views. Well it did go through and the beaches were beautiful, but not enough to stop Hurricane Sandy from washing all that work right back to sea where it came from only months before.

Holgate on Long Beach Island is the most Southern end of the Island, and is where the Beach Haven Inlet is that separates Atlantic City (top video) and Long Beach Island.

The video show the devastation Hurricane Sandy did. The sand that covers all road and every bit of property is feet deep.

The homes that you see here on the Ocean front had up hill driveways to each front of the homes. The beach sand was basically up to the bottom of the homes (Dunes) in which the homes pilings could not been seen. As you see there is not one dune and the land is completely flat even with the Ocean water pretty much. The dunes were so high that some people complained that the dunes were blocking their view of the Ocean and now look, every grain of sand is gone.

As I am pulling up these videos for this hub, I can't believe what I am seeing. I will be going over the Long Beach Island in a few days or possibly a week, whenever they open the bridge up for all the homeowners to return to the devastation that Hurricane Sandy did.

My sister owns a house on the Island in Ship Bottom right on the bay, but every house is now right on the bay, sad to say.

All gas and electric is off on the Island for safety reasons, but I also heard the electric maybe restored over this weekend. As you saw in the one video of Holgate, millions of tons of sand must be removed to even be able to drive a car to get to their homes.

Living at the New Jersey Shore will never be the same, but we will all rebuild and rebuild Long Beach Island even better than before.