Recovery from Sandy has wrought many changes

New York, New Jersey take stock of new look

NEW YORK — For four years, people have worked hard and mostly successfully to erase the deep scars Superstorm Sandy left on the New York and New Jersey coastlines when it crashed ashore with deadly force on Oct. 29, 2012.

But recovery will never come to Oakwood Beach, among several places along the coast that have seen permanent changes from the storm.

The Staten Island neighborhood, improbably built on a salt marsh, is slowly being returned to nature after state officials concluded that it would be foolish to rebuild in a place with so little protection from the ocean.

Under a state buyout program, 196 homes have been demolished., and 103 others will meet the same fate.

In Mantoloking, New Jersey, a shore town that saw nearly all of its 521 homes damaged or destroyed, a huge steel wall has been erected on the beach and then buried, in most places, under man-made dunes to keep the surf from reaching oceanfront homes during future storms.

In Seaside Heights, made infamous by the MTV reality show “Jersey Shore,” authorities still plan to rebuild an amusement park that had its roller coaster swept into the surf by the storm. But the town gave up on returning the park to a pier that jutted out into the water, opting instead for a new location on the beach.

The barrier island city of Long Beach, New York, had its only full-service hospital destroyed by flooding. The medical center was replaced last year by a smaller emergency department operated by an off-island community hospital.

But after four years of rebuilding, few places have as stark a then-andnow look as Oakwood Beach.

“As soon as there’s a buyout, they automatically throw up the boards, put the locks on the doors so there’s no trespassing and intruders,” said Joe Giordano, an engineer with NorthStar, the state contractor overseeing the demolition. “All those that are boarded up will come down in the next year to year and a half.”

In the northernmost section of the neighborhood, where damage was less severe, homes have been restored and life goes on.

On Fire Island, a popular summertime vacation spot, Sandy’s storm surge blasted clean through the narrow strip of land and left a new permanent inlet, between 1,475 and 2,345 feet across.

The breach between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great South Bay initially raised concerns about flooding on Long Island’s south shore. Experts say that hasn’t happened, and now officials at the National Park Service are examining whether to leave the new waterway open.

One argument in favor of doing so: The hole has helped flush pollution out of the bay, leading to a resurgence of clams and bass, according to Charles Flagg, a marine science professor at Stony Brook University. SEA GIRT, N.J. —

KATHY WILLENS/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Canada geese take to the sky last week from a vacant lot on Staten Island formerly occupied by a house that was destroyed by Superstorm Sandy’s storm surge in October 2012.