Return to Ortley Beach and Sandy

A team from my church, Iron Faith Fellowship, travelled up to Toms River and Seaside Heights  in late 2012 and came back weekly through to May 2013. We weren't on extended vacations. We came up to work with Samaritan's Purse aiding the victims of Hurricane Sandy. We spent most of our time at Ortley Beach, which was particularly hard hit, being trapped between the ocean and the bay when the storm hit. Waves of waters rushed up there streets from two directions and flood out the homes up to the second floor, if they had a second floor.

This past Thursday, Rick Korwek and I finally revisited the area we worked in to see what had happened since. It the above picture, Rick is the second in from the right. My daughter, Laurel, is second in from the left and I am third from the left.

This is what places looked like when we arrived. Everybody's belongings were piled along the curbs and the inside of the homes were gutted.

Here is how Ortley Beach looked when Rick and I got there on August 1, 2018:

Rick and I tried to find places we had worked on, but could only identify a couple. This one we remembered well.

It was one of the first we worked on. Here you see our team beginning. We were inside taking down wall board, prying up floors and pulling nails everywhere.

The place was a mess.

The photo on the right is the place today.

Rick and I are fairly certain we found this place. It was not healthy to work inside, note the hazmat suits. The place was over in black mold. The lady who owned was desperately trying to save things inside. She had a little art studio, but it was not in good shape. She wanted us to keep all these folders that were in a file cabinet, but they were thoroughly waterlogged and ruined.


We are fairly certain this is the same house, but an upper story has been added. That was her art studio on the left, the area in front of the SUV.


We located the site of one of the other home, right down next to a canal or waterway. Their goods had been carried outside, then swept up in a wave, but finally redeposited in the front yard.

We are certain we had the right lot, but apparently the old home had been torn down and a new house built on the property.

This was the crew working at the place back then on the left. That is Rick in the blue jacket right in the front.
 On the right is the crew on that day.  We were join by another church group from Pennsylvania.

My daughter, Laurel, and I are in the front near the middle. She has long dark hair and I have a white beard. Rick is in the back to second from the left.

We finished our visit in front of this building that was then set up as a food distribution center by the Salvation Army. Today it is vacant. After we were done helping with Samaritan's Purse, we worked in this center for several weeks.

I'm on the left (I was only 71 then), Laurel, Rick and Deb.

On the way home last Thursday, Rick and I had lunch at a restaurant our crews had eaten at a couple times back during this Sandy Cleanup, Quaker State Lube.

These photos were from then. This is where my daughter got her Biker name, Boozer. Everyone else had ice tea or coke, which came in glasses. Laurel ordered a root beer and this is how it looked.