Jersey Shore Magazine

sions: clothing, jewelry, home furnishings, some of which were heirloom or antique. More importantly, they lost memories: entire libraries of pictures and photo albums documenting the history of their families. Another friend with a wife and three young children, who were forced to evacuate their two-story riverfront home in Brick, are still renting a house in Monmouth County while their severely damaged home is being reconstructed. Meanwhile, to provide some stability, the children are now tuition students at their old school and have to be transported door-to-door by their parents. The husband and wife share the task, as well as going in the same car to and from work and to and from their home to check on its progress. Once they move back in, they will not feel any relief. They, like so many others, are still in a quandary as to whether or not funds will be available to raise their home according to the new flood map specifications. If they don't raise their home, they may have to pay at least $30,000. per year for flood insurance, which will be mandatory for those still having a mortgaged property. This astronomical insurance would render their home unlivable and unsellable. Thus, if they don't raise their rebuilt home, they may be forced to tear it down, sell the land back to the bank, and walk away. Theirs is only one of the 2,280 damaged homes in Brick. In Mantoloking and Mantoloking Shores, many houses that were washed from their foundations are still piled against each other or split in two. A number of homes were washed into the bay to be subsequently demolished and removed. One homeowner was so distraught on the day of the work that he couldn't board a boat to observe the operations and vowed never to return to the area. So he, like many of the others in that area, is now gone from the Jersey Shore. One who will never return is Mark Caramanna, 54, a barber in Ortley Beach whose home was destroyed. When he was allowed to visit his barbershop and saw that it, too, had been destroyed, he had a massive heart attack and died on the spot. Another who will never return is Kimberly Smrkovsky, 25, of Little Egg Harbor, who, while helping her parents clean up their home after the storm, suffered an asthma attack. She went into cardiac arrest and died. Mold was suspected as the underlying cause. Then there were those who couldn't evacuate their homes during the storm, or chose not to, and were later found dead: Erwom Bockhorn, 72, of Little Egg Harbor drowned in his home. Celestine Kreitzer, 94, of Forked River died of hypothermia in her home. George Tatay, 61, of Brick drowned in his home. Leonard Thompson, 71, of Stafford died of hypothermia in his home. And an unidentified man in Long Branch, found wrapped in blankets with no electricity in his home, died of hypothermia. Although the survivors of Sandy are slowly recovering from the effects of the Superstorm, none will ever really live the lives they once knew. u j e r s e y s h o r e • F a l l / h o l i d a y 2 0 1 3 81

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