New Jersey town struggles to see future after Sandy

• Scale of destruction from storm raises concerns lower-income homeowners may not be able to rebuild

UNION BEACH, N.J. — A month after superstorm Sandy, local restaurateur Gigi Liaguno-Dorr sees signs of progress amid the flattened houses and free-standing front steps she passes every day as she drives through town.

What she doesn't see are people.

"So where is everybody on the street?" she asked, passing by the splintered remains of Brook Avenue, one of the worst-hit areas. "Where are they, and how are they getting back?"

The same question is being asked in a number of devastated Jersey Shore communities where residents have been displaced. But it has special urgency in Union Beach, a scrappy, working-class town of 6,200 people tucked along the Bayshore of northern Monmouth County that has the will, but not the resources that more affluent towns can tap, to fully recover from the storm.

Few municipalities in New Jersey were damaged so thoroughly. The storm surge from Raritan Bay, dramatically captured in a YouTube video, flooded virtually the entire borough, which is less than 2 square miles. Some homes were submerged in up to 12 feet of water, local officials say. Many homes and businesses — including Liaguno-Dorr's popular waterfront restaurant, Jakeabob's Bay — were cut in half or swept into the surrounding marsh.

A total of 110 homes here were destroyed — nearly twice the tally in hard-hit Mantoloking — and more than 500 others that were heavily damaged may have to be torn down and rebuilt, said Bob Burlew, the borough's construction official. If that's true, the number of lost homes could amount to a quarter or more of Union Beach's 2,148 residential properties. An additional 1,000 or so homes had lesser storm damage, Burlew said.

The storm struck a staggering blow to a linchpin of Union Beach's unique character: blue-collar home-ownership.

Though the median household income here is $65,600 and just 11.5 percent of the adult population has a bachelor's degree — both benchmarks below the state and county averages — fully 90 percent of the homes are owned by their occupants, census and property tax records show.

Hundreds of these homes are little more than modest bungalows set on lots as small as 30 by 100 feet. In many cases, families have clung to these postage-stamp patches of the Jersey Shore for generations, not as summertime getaways but as year-round residences. Those properties that do change hands often go to other "Beachers," as locals refer to themselves. Over time, this has produced an exceptionally tight-knit community of long-time residents whose bonds to the borough are hard to break.

Now Sandy threatens to sever these deep roots. The scale of the destruction has raised concerns that many lower-income homeowners may not be able to afford to rebuild, especially if they would have to elevate or move their low-lying homes to conform to new federal flood insurance requirements.

The outlook may brighten in the coming months, as the cleanup continues and more residents return, but right now, a month after the storm, many here fear for the future of their town.

A beacon of hope

If the destruction in Union Beach is extraordinary, so, too, is the scope of its grass-roots recovery effort.

Eleven years ago, people here watched as the Twin Towers burned and collapsed across the bay.

Today, they're rallying around their own ground zero.

What St. Paul's Chapel in Lower Manhattan was to ground zero volunteers, Borough Hall has become for a dedicated corps of post-Sandy Samaritans such as Joni Vieau.

"I just said, 'I need to be here.' This is Week Four for me," said Vieau, 52, who lives an hour away in High Bridge, Hunterdon County.

The irony is that it took a storm that nearly wiped away this unsung enclave to finally put Union Beach on the map.

Since the storm, thousands of volunteers from as far away as California have found their way to the nondescript municipal building.

Among them are members of a group called Burners without Borders, affiliated with the Burning Man music and arts festival held annually in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Last week they began tearing down and clearing destroyed properties free of charge, a service that's saving each homeowner perhaps $10,000 or more.

Virtually every faith is represented. While Mennonites and Amish volunteers from Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries reverently disassembled the ground floor of Michelle Pumilia's flooded home, another group from Islamic Relief USA gathered up the debris in her yard. "Those people were unbelievable," said Pumilia, 39.

The cramped Borough Hall is a head-spinning bazaar of beneficence. Fresh-faced volunteers from AmeriCorps man an intake table in the foyer. Representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency have set up shop in the council chambers. Hot meals are served every day.

The road ahead

If it were simply a matter of grit and goodwill, few would question Union Beach's capacity to bounce back.

But the borough's road to recovery is anything but clear. Remember the spaghetti maps that plotted the storm's possible tracks? Ask people around town how all this is going to play out for Union Beach and you're likely to get just as many opinions.

For many Beachers, it's hard to imagine starting over somewhere else.

Take Scott Crosby, for instance. While his home survived the storm, his motorcycle shop down the street, Piranha Customs, burned to the ground, destroying about $60,000 worth of inventory that wasn't insured.

He tried in vain to douse the fire in waist-deep water with the lone firefighter who was able to reach the building that night. Crosby had to watch through the window as the flames in the shop enveloped his custom-built Harley-Davidson Sportster.

"Something in the back of my mind told me, 'Don't go in, don't go in,' and I'm glad I didn't," he said. "I got a breath of the air, the smoke, that came out, and I couldn't breathe. So chances are, if I had gone in there and tried to grab that, we might not be talking now."

Now he's looking to reopen in another location. A friend offered him space in a gleaming new auto parts store with a big showroom in Middletown. But there's another little spot over on Third Street, a former embroidery shop, that keeps tugging at him.

"It's three-quarters of the size my shop was, but I'm leaning to that place.

"I don't know," he said, "I just want to stay in Union Beach."