FIVE YEARS LATER

UD-COLORED steel pipes as wide as three basketballs snake along a barren section of beach in the New Jersey coastal town of Mantoloking.

They are the Jersey Shore’s newest attraction — and its last hope against the next Hurricane Sandy.

The pipes spew a steady stream of sand onto the shoreline, pumping it in from a dredging ship that sits more than 2 miles offshore.

The operation, launched earlier this month, is part of a long-awaited — and still-divisive — plan to bolster the coastline with supersized dunes and wider beaches.

“It gives me hope,” says beachgoer Darlene Barley, as she wanders along the coast on a recent October afternoon to catch a glimpse of the pipes and heavy machinery. “But will it survive another major nor’easter or hurricane? Who knows?”

The Army Corps of Engineers project represents progress, but it also epitomizes the lingering fear that pervades this idyllic, 14-mile stretch of coastline five years after it was walloped by Sandy.

A total of 34 people died in the storm in New Jersey, and more than 350,000 homes sustained damage.

Dozens of mansions in Mantoloking were decimated as the sea