In the wake of "Super Storm Sandy" I look at all the places on the New Jersey coast and am reminded of all the years of living on LBI. Looking at the pictures of the devastation, I am sad and my prayers go out to the people who have lost everything.
I remember the very first storm we were evacuated for which was Gloria. I can remember the feeling when standing at the door looking around and thinking everything we owned could very well be gone when we returned. What should I pack? What do I have time to pack up and how much will fit into the car? Birth certificates, all of our pictures, all of our legal papers, all of the stuff people keep to look back on in later years to remember the good times. Or do we take the TV, the stereo, the bed, the couch? What do we take? In the end all we took was ourselves and the dog. Our home which was not much, only a very small apartment on the second floor of a typical cape cod familiar at the shore. Small, but home to us. Everything we owned was in that small apartment. I can say it was at that very minute I decided I was not going to leave for another storm, and I did not. I did, of course make a "hurricane bag" which held all we would need after the storm. Not thinking when evacuating, we needed some form of ID which showed we really lived there. A lease, a title, a power bill the last things thought of when standing at the door looking around trying to absorb it all. Of course there were no storms of this strength, thank God.
I did stay on the island through the first 'perfect storm' where the tides fell on the cycle of the moon. Water so deep it was at the floorboards of the house we had just bought and only lived there a few months. Scary, yes! Frustrating, more so! However, I was happy I did stay there. not that I had a real choice.
The morning of the storm which was only predicted to be high tides. I ran home from work in the early morning to drive my son to the bus because it was raining so hard he would have been soaked in the half block walk. On the way there I noticed the tide was a little high and in that instant I decided to have him stay home instead of leaving the Island to go to school. Probably one of the wisest decisions I made. Later in the day they had to keep the students at the school. The only access to the island was flooded and the buses could not get back over to bring the children home. When I finally left work for the day I could not drive down our street and had to walk in the water which was waist high. The water went down at low time, not all the way down but enough for us to have a small sense of the storm being over, oh but no, the next time the tide came up it was even higher. By the end it was three days before we were able to move around normally and survey the damage.
Many people lost there houses at the time. The force of the water was incredible, the water as it came up lifted houses off their foundations. Moved them a few feet, some even as far as the middle of the street. It was then I realized the power of water. I always equate it to the overflowing toilet, where the water just comes up over the sides and keeps coming. It is just like when the ocean breaches the dunes or the bulkhead. It comes up so fast! Faster than any person has time to react. I can remember how at the time I was mesmerized with the power of the flow of the water. All I could do was stand there and watch it come up the street from one direction and up through the drains at the end of the streets. It appeared from every open drain and manhole.
My heart and prayers go out to everyone who has lived through the past few days in the wake of the storm. My empathy goes to the people who feel lost and hopeless.
My son who grew up on LBI is feeling the sense of loss, all he knew growing up is gone. Even living away from the island for over ten years he has the sense of loss, as do, I am sure most everyone who ever spent much of their vacations "at the shore" growing up.
Even with watching the news and stories I still have the draw of the beach. One day I will move back to the coast. I miss stopping on my way to work to view the ocean. I love the angry ocean in the wake of the approaching storm. We used to joke about the 'ions' which kept anyone who has lived by the ocean feel lost and empty away from the water.
In the wake of this storm I finally figured out what was missing in my life. The ocean. The sound of the waves hitting the beach. The quiet of the off season at the beach. The Nor'easterners and the wind, and yes even the hurricanes. The benefits of the ocean far outweigh the risks in my opinion.
My only advice to the people who have 'lost it all' is to
"remember the important things in life. You have built once to get where you are and can do it again. Some days it will seem very overwhelming, some days the only thing to do is take everything one day at a time. Some days you have to take life one step at a time. Focus on that one step, just putting one foot in front of the other, then it turns into two, then three, before you know it it becomes a mile.
Some days the only thing there is to do is go forward one minute, maybe only one second at a time. But going forward is the key, does not matter how fast or slow, just the fact of moving forward. Start one second, then it will turn into one minute. Before you know it it will be all back and even better. And as hard and overwhelming it feels now the human spirit has the ultimate need to survive, and survive you will. You will go on to bigger and better things. You will rebuild. You will get back to normal maybe not what you think normal is now but to a bigger and better normal!"
My prayers and thoughts are there not that that matters, you do not know me any more that I know who you are, but prayers are good no matter from who. Maybe one person reading this needs to know they have one person in their corner even though they may not know me. One person who has faith you will be ok and believes, in spite of the hardship right now things do get better. This will all be a memory sooner than you think. Something to look back on and wonder how you made it through. And when you get old stories to tell your grandchildren and great grandchildren.
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