Jersey Love: Superstorm Sandy ~ 2 years later

I did a blog post about Sandy back in August. You can read that one here. Today marks the 2 year anniversary of when we were starting to seriously feel the storm upon us. I actually looked at my "time hop" app on my phone last night and saw that I had posted something from a Halloween party Ted & I went to at a local bar on the water. I remember it well, it was a fun time and we left somewhat early. He drove me to my house and remember this awful wind. That was when I made the decision to go get my ducks and bring them into my garage.

Something, to this day, I chuckle about. I loved those ducks. I went down to the yacht club religiously every day/night to check on them and give them water.

The quick back story on them is that someone got little baby ducks for their kid one Easter and then bam, cute little fury babies end up to be big needy pooping everywhere ducks :)

So that yacht club that I am a member of kind of adopted them. They hung out there all the time. Someone inside would randomly throw corn to them once in a while, but I of course, was on another level. That being said, when Sandy was approaching, I KNEW I had to bring them in to a safer environment. If not all 3 then definitely these two. The third was the youngest and would most likely be ok. These two old guys couldn't really walk that well. So here we are, in my 2 1/2 car garage at my moms house which was stuffed full with 3 British cars, tons of yard items, furniture, cushions, etc. I managed to get 3 cars in AND make this little duck area. I must say, I impressed myself :)

Both ducks survived past Sandy but didn't make it much longer than that.

I cried when my old boy crossed the rainbow bridge. My sweet husband (then fiancé) reassured me that I definitely made their life better and certainly prolonged the enviable.

The Boardwalk in Seaside Heights

The JetStar Rollercoaster - this image was all over the news

The breach in Mantaloking - Another pretty famous image.

It's kind of scary to think that 2 years later, in my neighborhood alone and for sure all over the areas where Sandy ruined towns, we are still re-building.

There are tons of houses in my moms neighborhood vacant.
Many houses have been or are waiting to be lifted onto pilings.

It's crazy. And again, we were spared. The waters came up VERY close. A little too close for my liking, but spared us none the less.
Today I am thankful that we are at this point, looking back saying we got through it.
Got through the smell of natural gas in the air for 3 days
Got through having no power for almost 2 weeks
Got through not having work for 2 weeks
It still is a rattling thing to think about

Here are some pics I took with my camera when we were able to get out and walk around our destroyed neighborhood.....