Jersey Shore Magazine
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/141619
BEACHCOMBER continued from page 23 The Storm That Made Me Want to Change My Name by Sander Zulauf y office mate, originally from Ghana, was subdued the Wednesday afternoon before the storm. He simply said into the paper he was grading "A big storm is coming," and, believing it would track away from New Jersey, I said "This will be more of a comical storm than a tropical storm," since it had already lost power off the Carolina coast. He knew it would be bad. I didn't, until the lights went out around 6:30 on Monday night, October 29th. My wife and I finished our dinner by candlelight, expecting the power to return in moments, the way it had in every other storm. Then the transformers began exploding like bombs and lighting up the sky, and the winds began roaring. I have never heard such wind in all my life. A neighbor who is an amateur stormchaser clocked gusts at 111 miles an hour. This could no longer be a simple "Cat 1" hurricane. Nobody had been talking about the full moon. photo by Sander Zulauf M Uprooted perfection. The author stands next to a departed friend. Two storms converging with a full moon making a direct hit on New Jersey spelled disaster. Trees here in Sussex County came down in blast-like patterns suggesting tornadoes. The house groaned and shook with sounds I'd never heard before. We were isolated by downed trees, downed wires, and snapped- j e r s e y s h o r e • s p r i n g 2 0 1 3 Observing Dolphins at the Jersey Shore, October 22, 2012 24 Splendid sea creatures arc in sunlight Stretch out for a mile in calm water, Splashing turbulently as they breathe in The sparkling autumn morning, Slicing through small waves In an ocean more like a lake Than Atlantic. A pod of dozens, a unity, Glazed sleek black bodies, Large triangular dorsal fins All strive furiously southwards. They live in the moment completely Without concern for the moment Or the journey— With only their essential survival instincts. Shouting and singing Their clicks and whistles To each other, pulsing and thumping With thunderous splashings, Dancing to their ancient wondrous song. Did they know, our fellow mammals On this planet, a killer storm Would soon destroy the shore? — Sander Zulauf off telephone poles. An eighty-foot aspen on our front lawn fell through our neighbor's fence just missing their house. A tree I'd loved in the old farmyard to the west of us, I'd watched at sunset ever since moving here twenty-five years ago—one hundred feet tall, perfectly balanced, and worthy of Christmas in Rockefeller Center—gone. Transformers lay in the street all week. A neighbor's roof blew off, and another neighbor's daughter was covered with broken glass in her bed when a tree smashed through their skylight at 2:00 a.m. They lost eleven huge fir trees, one of them crushing their carport and car. Without power, the temperature inside our house dropped to fortytwo degrees. We had enough wood for one fire a night, a camp stove and a camp lantern, a portable radio, and were blessed with running water. We cooked food as it thawed out. Friday we finally could drive out to one supermarket that had opened nearby, driving around downed trees and under low-hanging wires. There we observed clerks removing tons of frozen foods and throwing everything away. We returned home having been unable to buy any ice or camp stove fuel. Saturday morning in the cold we began snapping at each other. Fearing pneumonia, I called my son in Colorado and asked him to do an internet search to find us a hotel. He called back and said the only one he