Jersey Shore Magazine
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/141619
A Visit To Bay Head After Sandy could find in a fifty mile radius was available for $399. a night. Sunday morning we arrived an hour early at church, forgetting it was the end of Daylight Savings Time. Miraculously, the church never lost power. With heat and electricity, St. Dunstan's stayed open all week, serving up warmth, hot coffee, and cell phone-charging, but we could not get there during the week. After the Sunday Eucharist, we were told by friends to head to Pennsylvania for gasoline. We drove out Route 80 and found gas available at the first exit, just as they'd said, so we filled the tank and bought ice and wood. When we returned home Sunday afternoon, we were prepared to enter a cold, dark house and resigned ourselves to face together whatever came next. We had wood, we had ice, and we had water. When we entered the house, the lights were on all over, the furnace was running and the house had begun heating up. It was the best birthday present in all my sixty-plus years in New Jersey. Then we turned on the television and realized for the first time the terrible extent of destruction down the shore. We merely lost a week, but so many of our fellow New Jerseyans lost everything. by Francine LaVance Robertshaw G photo by Jay Robertshaw s h o r e • s p r i n g 2 0 1 3 photo by Sander Zulauf j e r s e y Sander Zulauf is a poet and Professor of English at the County College Of Morris in Randolph. He is coeditor of the anthology "The Poets of New Jersey" and author of numerous books of poetry including "Succasunna, New Jersey." He was the founding editor of the "Index of American Periodical Verse," former editor of "The Journal Of New Jersey Poets," and named the first Poet Laureate for the Episcopal Diocese of Newark. He lives in Andover. Road closed. Power lines, exploded transformers, and snapped telephone poles lay in the streets all week. shoes!). All of the town beach accessrowing up spending summers es were blocked with huge mountains at the Jersey Shore, and eventuof sand, a start to rebuilding the ally living year-round in my adult dunes Sandy managed to wash away life for many years in Bay Head, I or deposit on the streets throughout weathered all sorts of nor'easters and town. All of the street-end decks and hurricanes and endured tidal floodbenches were obliterated, along with ing around my Lake Avenue home on many occasions—it was normal. Only so many of the stately houses so familiar to me. Bay Head looked like once, after moving out of state, had a blizzard of sand, beyond anything I learned that, finally, a flood much one could imagine. Within a few worse than any in my time there had days, once properly shod, I managed been deep enough to reach the first to access the beach and witness the floor of my former home. But Sandy damage first-hand, a heart-breaking last fall changed all that. One of my brothers (whose cottage was badly damaged by the floodwaters), once able to drive around town after the waters subsided, reported to me that water had reached the top of the window sills at my old place. A trip home to New Jersey a month after the storm, even with all the news coverage and internet and social media updates, could not have prepared me for the devastation I witnessed. By the time I arrived, East Avenue in Bay Head after Hurricane Sandy, December 2012. the town was buzzing with experience. cleanup and repairs. The weather The true "spirit lifter" of my visit stayed remarkably mild for early was knowing that the residents had December, and I was relieved for the a refuge in St. Paul's Church on workers and residents, as a winter Bridge Avenue, where they could turn storm was the last thing they needed. at any time of the day for a sooth The first place I visited in town was the former location of The Bluffs ing hot drink or go at mealtimes for the hearty fare served to anyone in on East Avenue, the hotel where I need. The National Guard forces did once worked. Many had remarked a splendid job of watching over Bay that if The Bluffs still existed, it most Head day and night, and although likely would not have weathered fed by the government, also enjoyed this storm, as it had so many in the the homemade fare and camaraderie past. The homes that now sit on the offered by the many volunteers at St. property were badly damaged, but Paul's. My family and I made sure survived. I wanted, as I always do, that we sent donations of canned to walk up the old concrete path and dry food, as well as blankets and that once led to the bar and on to warm clothing. It was so little, but the beach. A trip to Bay Head was the least we could do to help. never complete without that walk of In this very special town, it was so many happy memories. On this immediately apparent that a strong cloudy day, I wasn't able to access spirit endured. No storm could wash the beach, finding I would have that away. I was fortunate enough had to walk in soft, deep, freshly plowed sand (but I was wearing good continued on page 26 25