2012 SUMMER PREVIEW

SINCE 1950

1962: Recalling the Great March Storm, 50 Years Later

SPECIAL EDITION

Long Beach Island’s Original

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’62 Storm Memories

CONTENTSFeatures Pg 16 | GoodTimes

Pg 42 | Centennial Party

Pg 30| Splashback

The entire contents of The Beachcomber are copyrighted ©2012 by The SandPaper Inc. Reproduction of any matter appearing herein without specifi c written permission from The SandPaper Inc. is prohibited. All rights reserved. The Beachcomber is published and delivered free on Long Beach Island from May 25 to August 30. Editorial and business offi ces are located at 1816 Long Beach Blvd., Surf City, N.J. 08008. Phone: 609-494-5900. Fax: 609-494-1437. E-mail: beachcomber@thesandpaper.net.

PUBLISHER:Curt Travers

MANAGING EDITOR:Victoria Lassonde

BOOK EDITOR:Margaret Thomas Buchholz

COPY EDITOR:Neal Roberts

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR:Cindy Linkous

ART DIRECTORS:Adrian Antonio

Rose Perry

TYPOGRAPHY SUPERVISOR:Anita Josephson

PHOTOJOURNALISTS:Ryan Morrill, Jack Reynolds

PRODUCTION MANAGER:Jeff Kuhlman

WRITERS:Perdita Buchan, Margaret Thomas Buchholz,

Eric Englund, Kelly Anne Essinger, Pat Johnson, John Koegler, Michael Molinaro

OFFICE MANAGER:Lee Little

SALES ASSOCIATES:Andrea Driscoll, Kathy Gross, Steve Havelka,

Marianne Nahodyl, Allen Schleckser

CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING:Brenda Burd, Sarah Swan

PRODUCTION, TYPOGRAPHY & DESIGNRay Carlson, Jason Cascais, Dan Diorio, Eileen Keller,

Gail Lavrentiev, Pattie Mclntyre, Abigail Peraria

ON THEON THECOVER Courtesy of Ed Kaes, Jay Mann

Images captured by eyewitnesses of the nor’easter’s destruction tell a striking, telling and haunting tale.

Pg 34 | A Bird’s-eye View Pg 40 | The Lynches’ Tale

Pg 44 | Boys Will Be Boys

Pg 32 | The Wright House

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MAKE WAY: Bulldozers and tractors worked all during the spring and summer for LBI to recover from those dreadful days in March; summer vacationers came as usual.

Courtesy of Ed Kaes

Memorial Day 1962 - ‘We Must Build on Memory of That Storm’

By MARGARET BUCHHOLZ

A half century ago, in the fi rst sum-mer issue of 1962, “Beachcombings” led off with a progress report on recovery from the devastating Great March Storm less than three months earlier. This nor’easter damaged or destroyed about two-thirds of the homes in Harvey Cedars, leveled Hol-gate, broke through the Island in three places and washed away most of the Is-land beaches.

Looking back over last year ’s Memorial Day issue, we noticed that we had started the 1961

season with a report of the northeast storm in early April, which, at the time, we thought a bad one. It is ironic that a year later we must repeat this.

People have said to us, “Forget the storm, look ahead,” but to our mind these do not go together. We shall certainly look ahead, but we shall not forget the storm of March 6. In look-ing ahead, and building for the best season ever – we have found that the summer seasons successively improve – we must build on the memory of that storm. What it must mean to us now is the opportunity to improve the Island, to powerfully strengthen our beachfront and, more specifi cally, to push for a long- awaited and federally backed fl ood insurance.

We live and work with two con-stant sounds, by day the drone of bulldozers, earthmovers and other re-construction equipment – by night, the pounding of the ocean. Now the ocean is calm and gentle and the equipment strong and powerful. They are recon-structing our beachfront, pushing up

dunes and forming new dune lines to hold the ocean back.

Restoration and reconstruction are the key words. The whole Island, with the exception of hard-hit Har-vey Cedars and Holgate, is ready for the summer visitors. Debris has been cleaned up, roads have been cleared, and tourist facilities are in operation. One motel owner, demonstrating the confidence felt on the Island, has added 18 units to his bayfront motel. When friends tried to book a room two weeks ago on a Saturday, there were none available.

Vacationers will be surprised and delighted at the clean, wide, white beaches; some are better than ever because the storm brought new sand to the surface. It is reported that the fi shing is better also – and if the num-ber of cars with poles on the roof and the crowds at the fi shing clubs are any indication, the reports are correct. This is a result of the marine growth torn from the ocean bottom during the storm.

All businesses are operating. Al-most all of them are located on the Boulevard and had only to contend with water and mud, which was quickly cleared away. The Ship’s Wheel, which washed away in Har-vey Cedars, is partially rebuilt and has a sign out reading, “Open for business Memorial Day.” It opened on June 17th. The Sink ’r Swim Shop, also in Harvey Cedars, was completely sunk and the remains cleared away. Sink ’r Swim reopened in Haven Beach a few months later.

Real estate offi ces report that va-

cationers who previously stayed in Harvey Cedars have not deserted for other communities. Mayor Reynold Thomas, operating out of a tempo-rary borough hall (it was destroyed in the storm), said that the main road would be oiled by mid-June. This hard hit town is taking great strides toward rebuilding. All homes must now be built on pilings, this method having been found to best resist fl oodwaters. The town is allowing property owners who lost their homes to put trailers on their property, a temporary measure to give these homeowners a summer at the shore. The trailers must be gone by November.

Of the approximately 350 homes in Harvey Cedars, about 200 were destroyed or severely damaged. Sand was 3 to 4 feet deep over most of the town. At the south end, the rushing water had uncov-ered stumps of the cedar forest that was destroyed in the 1821 hurricane. Water mains were snapped into pieces. Federal emergency funds were granted to the bor-ough for the restoration of public facilities.

Some, but not many, homeowners sold at distress-sale prices.

Harvey Cedars has established a planning commission which must make some hard decisions on whether certain beach properties should be set aside as parks in order to build up and preserve the natural terrain. One only has to look to see that no beach land was set aside for public space; the demands of the private sector dominated. But the borough did set aside for public use the land that is now Sunset Park. Much of the rubble from destroyed buildings is buried there.

Up and down the Island, the burn-ing question was “what to do with the beaches.” The LBI Conservation Society conducted a panel meeting to discuss the pros and cons of bulk-heads vs. sand dunes. … The Lovela-dies Property Owners met to discuss the rehabilitation of the beach. … The Long Beach Township commissioners proposed a $3.1 million bond issue to build a bulkhead from Ship Bottom to Beach Haven.

Jackie Sparks,Beach Haven Gardens

Fifty years ago, Jackie Sparks left for work on a rainy March morning – nothing too unusual,

just some wind and fl ooding. That same afternoon, she left her job at Prudential in Linwood with “a car-load of girls” to head home, totally unaware of the misadventure that lay ahead. The fi rst clues came in the form of the hail, snow, light-ning and rain they encountered on the drive home. When they reached Parkertown, Sparks’ friend’s father commandeered her car keys, inform-ing them that three men already had died – Long Beach Township Com-missioner Kenneth Chipman, Police Chief Angelo Leonetti and Robert Osborn, who were all in a truck that overturned in a ditch.

Eventually her father found her, Sparks recalled, and she stayed with several different families until she

could get a pass to return to the Island. At fi rst, passes were issued only one per household.

Her family was lucky; they didn’t have much damage on 90th Street in Peahala Park, between the bay and the ocean. But Sparks remembers seeing a house in the Boulevard in Ship Bottom, a house in the bay in Harvey Cedars, sand and debris ev-erywhere, and the unnerving sight of suitcases adrift at the end of her street.

“It was nerve-wracking to see on TV the beached (Navy) ship in Hol-gate and John Coyle on TV in Har-vey Cedars, who had lost his home and the fi rst Sink’r Swim shop,” she recalled.

She fi gures she was off-Island for more than a week, because she got her return pass after March 11. For several weeks following the disaster, State Police regularly stopped cars on the Causeway to check for passes,

she said. Sparks was stopped many times on her way to and from work.

“They didn’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry coming over here, looting,” she said.

In the midst of all the surreal im-agery and confusion, Sparks can re-member that her mother, wanting to protect her from the scenery, advised her: “Don’t look. Don’t drive around looking for destruction.”

In the aftermath, Sparks seems to recall, the Island’s economy didn’t suffer too gravely; she had started working at Howard’s Seafood Res-taurant – the restaurant she and her husband, Kingston Sparks, now own together – in 1960. In the summer of ’62, business didn’t seem to be too negatively impacted, she said.

Debbie (Spiotta) Hunter,West Creek

“We had only lived in Beach Ha-ven for one year. I was in fi rst grade. I do remember our family and my

cousins, who had a trailer in Hol-gate, leaving the Island in a huge emergency vehicle with big tires. We spent one night at Southern Re-gional High School, and a family in Barnegat took us in until we could return home. The National Guard wound up staying at our house in Beach Haven. Even though we were close to the bay, our home did not get flooded. I also remember the destroyer ship that ran aground in Holgate. Having been through that experience, whenever we are told to evacuate the Island, I listen! Better safe than sorry.”

Ellie Ollivier,Beach Haven

“My husband, Al, and I had de-cided to stay on the Island during the storm. He was busy rescuing people with one of the Beach Haven fi re trucks. The ocean was roaring, waves were as high as houses, and

Fifty Years Later, They’re Still Here Remembering

Continued on Page 38

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Wright House StoodIts Ground in ’62 Storm

HOT SEAT: Clarence Winklespecht, a good friend of Albert and Hilda Wright, had a Harvey Cedars house on Burlington Avenue that was among many wiped out in March 1962. The blow did not wipe out his sense of humor. The toilet was found on an island in Harvest Cove.

FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE: The back of the Wrights’ house is seen a week after the storm. The couple credits the solid brick and cement porch with taking the brunt of the raging ocean water, saving the home from destruction.

DOWN AND OUT: Several weeks later, a nearby Harvey Cedars home is engulfed in fl ames, set afi re to reduce it to rubble so someone could start afresh, according to the Wrights.

BRINGING BACK MEMORIES: Fifty years later inside the house that weathered the wind and fl ood, Albert looks over pictures of the ’62 Storm’s impact on his Harvey Cedars neighborhood.

HOME SWEET HOME: Albert and Hilda enjoy the back yard of their Harvey Cedars home that survived the ’62 Storm. The back porch is a welcoming feature to this day, shaded beneath a modern, elevated deck.

Supplied Photos

Photographs by Ryan Morrill

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234 A Rare Bird’s-Eye View

Of Storm’s AftermathBy CAPTAIN JOHN T. KOEGLER

During March 1962, a very un-usual weather system formed off the Eastern Seaboard, de-

veloping into a super-sized nor’easter. The storm’s center was located almost 1,000 miles from the coast. Its power exploded as it drew energy from the hot Gulf Stream

A northeast storm that far offshore is extremely rare. Yet despite its great distance from the coastline, it impact-ed much of the Eastern Seaboard, from Cape Hatteras to Maine. Virtually all coastal towns, even those far up rivers – and considered a safe distance from the shoreline – were ravaged.

Long Beach Island was only one of many coastal communities to be smashed. For nearly four days straight, the winds never dropped below 30 miles per hour, with winds gusting to hurricane-force.

Closer to the storm’s center, fero-cious winds spawned 40-foot swells. Pushed shoreward by powerful north-east winds, the long-period waves surged onto the coastline – and never backed off. The shoreline didn’t see a low tide during the next fi ve tide cycles. Without low tides to reduce the height of the fl ooding ocean, each high tide cycle was greater than the previous one, a phenomenon known as stacking. The bays also fi lled to far beyond fl ood stage.

LBI was battered from both the ocean and the bay for days on end. The two met at a number of narrow points on the Island.

My parents owned an Island house. They were concerned because their neighbors had fled the Island just before it went underwater. They de-scribed the beachfront storm damage they had seen before they evacuated as horrifi c.

Winds were forecast to subside on the fi fth day. Hoping to check the fam-ily house, my brother and I left Penn-sylvania before dawn. As we neared the Causeway bridges, a New Jersey State Police roadblock prevented our approach. NJSP offi cers explained that despite the improving weather, it was not possible to travel on the Island. Saltwater still covered all the main roads. They explained there was no way to be sure the roads were safe to drive on until the saltwater drained from the roads. We retreated to our car to discuss options.

Just then a returning Army 2½-ton truck stopped at the roadblock. I walked up to the truck, hoping to speak to the driver. I eyed the water line on the truck’s fenders. It was chest high! This water height confi r-mation ended our quest. The water was too deep to even consider driv-ing to the Island.

We headed back toward Pennsyl-vania, unsure of what to do next. We called the neighbor who had asked us to check his house. They lived in Lansdale, close to Route 309. After we explained the problem, he suggested

we rent an airplane from the local air-port. He called and booked a plane for us. We were amazed to see the airport grass was snow-covered. The runway was dry. The Beechcraft style plane had a low wing design. It had been in a hangar and was ready to go when we arrived.

We fl ew directly to LBI. The adven-ture began at the Barnegat Lighthouse. The pilot was great. He offered to fl y the plane at an angle to the ground. This provided our right-hand seats with a clear view of the Island without a wing in the pictures. This greatly im-proved what we could see. He stated the northeast winds were behind us, providing a tail wind. But the strong winds made the ride bouncy.

As we fi rst looked down, we were traumatized. Most beachfront homes were gone! We quickly approached North Beach and Loveladies. Not only were their beachfront houses missing, but in some areas all houses between the ocean and the bay were gone! Here and there an occasional founda-tion and a few telephone poles were all that pierced the fl ood. Some blocks were intact, followed by blocks with nothing.

What we viewed through our cam-eras’ viewfi nder could not be com-prehended. We saw former beach-front houses located too close to the ocean’s waves. Often the next house was more than 100 feet away. On some streets, the third house from the beach was the only house that appeared un-damaged. Almost all of LBI’s 22 miles of beachfront homes had been elimi-nated! Many of the second-from-the-beach homes had also been destroyed. Occasionally a house was sitting half submerged in Barnegat Bay.

As we approached Holgate’s water tower, an unbelievable mirage came into focus. South of the last jetty was a huge U.S. Navy destroyer sitting on the beach. Monster waves were still smashing into it; waves were climb-ing vertically up its side. Despite the ocean’s fury, the destroyer appeared intact. How could a 400-foot destroyer end up on an LBI beach? Our plane circled the destroyer for a better view. Incredible!

We next flew along the bayside, looking for landmarks we could identify. First the Little Egg Harbor Yacht Club and then Morrison’s Ma-rina (then known as Priestlies or Bill Howe’s) in Beach Haven. Our boat, the 43-foot Miraamy, had been blocked for the winter. We did not see it. Was it still there, or had it fl oated away?

The plane banked and fl ew up Sec-ond Street, heading toward the beach. We were stunned to see so many boats had fl oated off their winter storage cradle. The super-high tides plus the fi erce northeast winds had fi rst launched them and then pushed them across Second Street. These boats were jumbled together against the rear of the Dock Street bars, the Acme and the Antlers. The Lucy Evelyn schooner gift shop came into view. It was still

surrounded by water! Her masts ap-peared upright, but she appeared from the air as if she was bow high.

We continued the bayside trip. Crossing the Causeway, we loaded fi lm and rewound the 8mm movie cameras to get ready for a second beachfront pass. The beachfront houses’ destruction could not be comprehended. North Beach was gone. In several places, the ocean was washing over the Island with every wave.

Some beachfront homeowners had invested major money to be protected by big, wooden bulkheads. It was im-possible to understand how so many of those bulkheads could have been wiped out. The tall pilings looked like lonely toothpicks and appeared totally out of place. Their supporting structure and bulkhead boards were all missing.

It was evident that few bulkheads had been constructed well enough to protect the houses. We saw houses were on top of garages, their neigh-bor’s porch or an open sand dune lot. It was too much. Even from 300 feet above the beach, the ocean waves looked monstrous and menacing. What had the wave’s heights been during the storm’s peak?

We began our second trip down the beachfront. The water towers were the landmarks. Long Beach Boulevard was still under water. A few houses sat on this roadway. The Long Beach Township municipal building looked lonely.

Beach Haven’s beachfront play-land’s two buildings seemed intact. These buildings were so near the ocean’s pounding waves that it was hard to imagine their interiors being whole.

Most houses had appeared undam-aged from the air. Later, when viewed at ground level, their fi rst fl oor was missing. Their furniture and any con-tents that had not fl oated away were strewn around their yard.

The new Beach Haven oceanfront bar and restaurant appeared intact. As we neared Holgate, it was evident

that this town had been decimated. The big, white Coast Guard station ap-peared undamaged. Stricklands huge, new Holgate Marina had been erased. Its stored boats were all missing. The shop building no longer existed. The marina’s pilings were also missing. In the distance against several bay is-lands’ high shrubs were a few boats. Where had all the stored boats gone?

The huge Navy destroyer was sit-ting on the beach awaiting its fate. We fl ew up the bay to get a better view of our family and neighbor’s houses. They appeared to be on their founda-tions. But at 100 miles per hour it was impossible to determine their condi-tion. I was delighted to see the Hud-son House intact.

After crossing the Causeway, we turned back toward Fort Dix’s re-stricted air space and the airport. We entered a narrow sliver of airspace that permitted our direct return to the airport we had left more than hours before. While the plane purred along, we picked up the empty fi lm canisters we had dropped while changing fi lm. All the empty cartons were soon fi lled with exposed fi lm and canisters.

Our bird’s-eye view of LBI was beyond anything we had ever experi-enced before; there was no doubt the Island had been dealt a terrible blow. It was so much worse than anyone had reported. Later, even the old-timers could not recall a more devas-tating storm. What would the insur-ance companies cover? Their future waterfront coverage became an issue that would forever change how water-damaged properties would be covered in the future.

Many of our fi lms’ details became viewable only this year. I had four rolls of 8mm fi lm transferred to DVD format. The DVD computer software pause button could freeze a single frame. For the first time, we could study and understand the small de-tails that we had missed watching the fi lm at standard projection speed. De-spite the horror we had felt, we were delighted we had seen and recorded a piece of Island history.

Photograph by Bernard Buck, courtesy of John W. Staats

WINGING IT: The powerful force of the weather during that fateful week in March 1962 knocked houses around like gamepieces on a Monopoly board.

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the ocean was washing over the end of our street. An Army DUKW (a six-wheel-drive amphibious truck) pulled in front of our house and evacuated us – my children, Alan, 7, Judy, 5, Dan 3, and me – to the fi rehouse. We felt like cattle as we were herded onto the back of the army truck and were taken to Southern Regional High School. Ev-eryone was wonderful. I was teach-ing third grade at Beach Haven grade school that year but still not allowed back on the Island for three days. What an unbelievable sight when we fi nally got back. Our home was fi ne, but we saw lots vacant, where homes had been, parts of homes in the mid-dle of streets, appliances, debris every-where – what devastation!”

Charles Moffett,Beach Haven

“I was a member of the Beach Ha-ven Volunteer Fire Co. and the Beach Haven First Aid Squad at the time, as well as a teacher at Southern Regional High School. My home then was on Engleside Avenue. I was fortunate to have both heat and electricity through-out the storm.

“Around 6 a.m. Monday morning, I got up to say goodbye to my mother, who was headed to Florida for a brief vacation before reopening her local grocery store for the coming season. It was cold and it was raining. She left our home, and I began to get ready to go to my teaching job at Southern Regional. Then the fi re siren went off. The tide was rising rather quickly, and the fi re trucks and ambulances had to be moved to higher ground (the va-cant lot where Veterans Bicentennial Park is now.)

“My mother made it to Florida, not knowing the fury she left behind or

Continued from Page 30

Still Here the damage to her business that was to follow. Some teachers living on the Is-land left early enough to get to South-ern Regional. They became part of the team of workers who looked after the evacuees from the Island for the next few days. Most of my time during the early part of the storm was spent shut-tling those who needed to be moved to a safer place. One of those was the home of Ralph Parker in Beach Haven Terrace.

“On a humorous note: While (I was) sitting in the ambulance on En-gleside Avenue by the Park at night, a possum came scampering out from one of the nearby houses looking for a dry place.”

Jack Elliott,Little Egg Harbor

Long Beach Island wasn’t the only beach town where the storm impacted families’ lives forever.

“Our family lived this moment of time,” Elliott writes. “It’s so hard to believe it has been 50 years.”

At 20th and Ocean Drive in Sea Isle is a lot covered with bushes, tall grass and some wildfl owers. Jack’s broth-er Harry Elliott had purchased this corner lot in 1946. Jack was 16 at the time. Together with their dad, uncles and friends, those men built not just a summer house, but a base for fond family memories that included the aroma of fresh-fried doughnuts, the Ocean City boardwalk, swimming in the saltwater pool at Flanders Hotel, Johnson’s popcorn, milkshakes and dancing at the Chatterbox.

That house, like so many oth-ers, ended up in the bay after the nor’easter of 1962.

“The mighty ocean met with the bay,” Elliott writes. “We could see the dormers in the roof, peeking out of the bay, but we still have lots of great memories from good old Sea Isle City.”

Beverly (Stewart) Reitinger,Brant Beach

“My family lived on 104 Old Whaling Lane in the Dunes during the storm in 1962. My mom, brother, younger sister and I were in our house when the storm hit. My dad, Robert Stewart, was off on business. When the storm surge began, he begged an oil truck coming onto the Island to give him a ride to our family. No cars were allowed, so my dad left his car in Manahawkin. The truck left him off on the Boulevard, and he walked the rest of the way through the wind and rain.

“My greatest recollection is where the water surges met. We were one house in off Beach Avenue. The ocean and the bay met at Beach Avenue and rolled back toward their origins. This caused huge waves and current roll-ing down the street. My father was civil defense, so we immediately fi lled bathtubs with water and pulled fro-zen foods to put in the refrigerator. We also cooked what we could and found fl ashlights and candles. Luckily we had a working fi replace.

“After the fi rst aftermath, the street was no longer visible, but with huge mounds of sand. Two of the homes by the ocean were tipped into the sand where manhole objects were visible. Luckily there were no ocean-front homes, or they would have been washed away. (They are there now, though!)

“The funniest recollection I have is my dad and I (being a 13-year-old girl) watched this boat fl oating down Beach Avenue. Being heroic, we decided to tie it to a telephone pole to save it from damage. Only later, after wind and more water surge, the boat didn’t fare too well. My parents owned at this time two duplexes on 17th Street in North Beach Haven. They were back one from the ocean. They be-came oceanfront for many years. My

aunt and uncle owned two duplexes on the ocean, and one of their homes had their daughter’s wedding gifts stored on the fi rst fl oor. My brother and father helped get these gifts out while the wind and water was blow-ing fi ercely. In hindsight, that was re-ally stupid.

“At one point, a helicopter flew over our home and asked if we want-ed to be evacuated. Unfortunately there were too many of us. We were later taken by truck (I think it was an open-bed truck, but I’m not sure) to Southern Regional. At this point, my dad was able to retrieve his car. The people all over the mainland were coming to everyone’s aid and opened their homes. We ended up in Tucker-ton with a lovely family that housed us for a few days until we could get a hold of our relatives.

“When we returned, our home was not damaged, but the street and every-thing surrounding us was completely buried by the sand.”

Greg Canellis,Tuckerton

“It was March 5, 1962, my fifth birthday. Being (I was) an only child, my mom and dad had a small birthday party for me that evening at our tiny bungalow home in Tuckerton Beach. While I blew out the candles and ate ice cream and cake, I recall my dad kept anxiously looking out the win-dow, obviously concerned about the storm outside. While I was lost in my festivities, I didn’t notice my parents packing some overnight belongings. We eventually left that night to stay with the family my father worked for in Tuckerton.

“I know my mom and dad were not prepared for what we found when we returned to our tiny home a day or so later … or what was left of it. At 5 years of age, everything was a new

Continued on Page 46

STAIRS TO NOWHERE: At debris fi elds everywhere, it was hard to decide where to begin to pick up pieces and put lives and homes back together after March 1962. Supplied Photos

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Courtesy of Ed KaesINSIDE OUT: Houses tore open, causing contents of rooms to come spilling out. Support beams gave way, crushing whatever lay beneath. Some clung to whatever belongings they could salvage.

By DONA LYNCH

Ship Bottom was one of the first towns opened after the ’62 Storm. Many homeowners

opened their homes for the year-round people who had lost their homes or were not allowed back in their homes. We were not allowed back to Loveladies, so we stayed in Ship Bottom.

The Army Corps of Engineers rolled out metal roads in North Beach, Harvey Cedars, Loveladies and part of Barnegat Light. These temporary roads probably were used on the south end of the Island, too.

The fi rst day of the storm, March 6, started like any other. I got up and got ready to go to Southern Regional High School. Our bus driver picked me up, and by the time we got to Barnegat Light on the route, he said he didn’t feel good about the day (it was very still). He said he was going to drop us back off at our houses on his way off the Island. Thank good-ness he did or we all would have been separated from our families for at least three days.

When Tom brought me back to my mom’s the next day, we could drive only so far as roads were bro-

By THOMAS A.J. LYNCH JR.

In early March ’62 I was 20 years old and living at home on Broad-way in Barnegat Light with my

parents. I had just fi nished my day of bait clamming on the old dragger Seagull and had unloaded clams into a refrigerated box truck at the dock. Little did I know that in a few days there would be no electricity, the clams in the truck would perish, and the Seagull would sink at the dock. Everything as we knew it was about to change.

My girlfriend, Dona, was over for dinner the night of March 6. Later Mom said water was coming into the utility room. That was the start of the March ’62 Storm.

I tried calling Dona’s mother, who had a home in Loveladies. No answer. The phones were out. However, I was able to take Dona home in the morn-ing.

On March 7, there was plenty of wind, rain and water on the roads. Some houses in Loveladies were in trouble. Some had washed away. Roads in Loveladies were starting to wash away.

Barnegat Light was in fair condi-tion. The town still had roads and most homes were still OK, but there was no electricity, and most of the town had no fresh water.

On March 8, there were no roads left in Loveladies, Harvey Cedars, North Beach and Surf City. There was no electricity or water, and heavy damage to houses and property.

The ocean met the bay in Harvey Cedars, creating a new inlet in the gas station area. The telephone company building washed away.

Reynold Thomas, owner of Bar-negat Bay Dredging Co., pumped

sand back in and restored the breach. Thomas was one of the many heroes. He really was a great man. Now you could get through Harvey Cedars to Barnegat Light as well as to the south end of Long Beach Island.

My boss, who owned the Seagulland party boat Albatross, lived in Toms River but also had a summer house in Harvey Cedars. I had to call to tell him his summer house had washed away. It was very hard to do.

Dona’s dad chartered a helicop-ter to come to Loveladies and rescue Dona, her mother, sister, dog and cat. The helicopter pilot wouldn’t take the dog and cat, and Dona wouldn’t go without them.

My dad, Capt. Tom Lynch, had a charter boat and took Mom, my broth-er, sister, Dona, her dog and cat, and good friend Lilian Tum-Suden to the mainland. This is what a lot of people did. It was hard to live without elec-tricity, heat and water.

I stayed in Barnegat Light and went to work for the borough’s pub-lic works. Henry Tum-Suden was in charge of the water department. We were busy capping off broken wa-ter mains on the ocean side of Long Beach Boulevard, trying to get water back on.

I really lucked out as I stayed with Mr. Tum-Suden and he had a gas gen-erator for his whole house. We had heat, electricity and water.

Also, the fi rehouse had a genera-tor, as well as the Coast Guard station. Supplies were brought in by boat or helicopter.

Martial law was in effect for the whole Island. You needed a pass to go from one town to another. Roads and utilities were beginning to be restored. By June, most of the Island was back in action.

On July 28, 1962, I married Dona. We are celebrating our 50th anniver-sary this year, also.

The great thing that came out of the storm was the biggest building boom that ever happened on Long

ken or washed away. We had to do a lot of walking. As we walked, we saw beachfront homes half washed away, but mugs still hung on hooks in exposed cabinets – so strange. We saw the remains of a house slide into the ocean.

My mom had taken in an ocean-front family: a mother and five children. Their home was on stilts and rocking at the time, although it eventually survived. The woman’s two older boys and I went to all the summer homes on our street that my mom had the keys for to get all their canned goods. We were hoping to fi nd items with juice or liquid as we didn’t have water. Also, Tom went back to Barnegat Light to get water for us.

Tom truly was our hero. He and his dad were our knights, but instead of a white horse, they had a white boat, the Christie.

Fifty years later, Tom is still the love of my life. And our daughters still live by the water, Lacey in Bar-negat Light and Cherie in Tuckerton. We retired by water, also, in Florida.

For me, young and in love, March ’62 was a very exciting time. For our parents, it was the scare of a lifetime.

Dona Lynch lives in Sebastian, Fla.

Beach Island. People were busy work-ing and making a living. The Island was being rebuilt.

Let the good times roll! Thomas A.J. Lynch Jr. lives in Sebas-

tian, Fla.

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STRANGE DAYS: The way the storm activity shifted earth and sand around made coastal property look more like a moonscape.Supplied Photo

A Post-StormScheme LedTo Life Lesson

A Memoir of the ’62 Storm

When the Great March Storm hit the East Coast in 1962, Larry Oliphant of Mana-

hawkin, whose grandfather ran the old gristmill and built the Old Stone Store, was a sophomore in high school.

“We got a week off of school,” he remembered.

Beach Haven West was just be-ing built then, and Mill Creek Road was dirt. As two curious boys, he and his friend Eddie Nickel (a for-mer fi re chief in Stafford and Eagles-wood townships), whose father had the plumbing business on the point where Pet Agree is now, went to ex-plore the fl ooding conditions and see if they could make their way to the beach. The boys’ moms were best friends.

“Anyway, Eddie and I decided we were going to get to Long Beach Is-land after the storm. So we put on waders – chest waders. We tried to get down Bay Avenue, but they wouldn’t let us across. They had guards there, some make-believe cops – well, I got one of their hats, so they couldn’t have been too bad – got the badge, threw the hat away, but anyway.”

So Bay Avenue was a no-go. But the boys knew they could try another route: Mill Creek Road.

“The tide was still up really, really deep, so we were gonna try to walk on the sidewalks. You know where Jonathan Drive is now? Well, that was just being built, so we were gon-na walk down that, and get around the cops, cuz they were there in the woods, and then we were gonna come out on the Morris Boulevard bridge and go to the beach.

“We’re going down the sidewalk where Jonathan Drive was, and we pulled out a couple of these big sur-vey stakes, for feelers. When we got to where – you know where Marsha Drive comes across? Well, when they were building that, they dredged through there. That was the new Beach Haven West Boulevard. Well, we got to that point – right from here to the end of this table – and there was no bottom.

“They had dredged about 14 feet deep, and we had these poles. We’re walking now, like the sidewalk’s width, in water up to here already, and with waders. If we’d gone over-board, I wouldn’t have been here probably telling you.”

That’s as far as the boys got before they had to quit for the day. But they went back later, after the tide had re-ceded a bit, so they could fi nd a way to get around the woods. Where the adult bookstore is now located, he said, “that ditch wasn’t there along

the edge of the woods.” Also, he re-called, the owners of that little gas station on Bay Avenue lived in the house across the street.

“Anyway, we come out behind their house and got over the bridge to the Island. Well, we got as far as The Dutchman’s.

“When we got there, all that piece (of property) where (Wally) Chap-man’s marina and all is, that whole north side of Bay Avenue was full of stool ducks and boats, and all kinds of stuff. We started gathering all this stuff up, so we never went to the beach. We didn’t care; we found tons of stuff!

“Oh, God, we had those big racing life preservers with the neckpieces on it, about 20 to 30 stool ducks, and, if you know where that house is that they got fenced in there now on the Causeway that’s falling down, well, next to that was a garage. … So we found some garbage cans, we fi lled these garbage cans full of stool ducks and all kinds of contraband that we found, took steering wheels off of boats and stuff. … To us, we were into building boats, and it was con-traband, it was free – so we hid it.”

Little did they know that Al Ton-neson’s dad, Axel, over at the bait shop, was watching with binoculars. After the storm, they convinced Oli-phant’s mom to go back with the car to pick up the loot, but it was gone.

Sometime later, Larry and his mom ran into the Tonnesons at the grocery store – ShopRite, formerly Grant’s, where Value City Furniture is now.

Oliphant’s mom said, “You know, Axel, that wasn’t very nice, what you did to those boys.”

And he looked at her and he said, “Libby, it wasn’t theirs, was it?”

By SUSAN SCULLY

My mom and dad, Hilda and Albert Wright, who are 85 and 91 years old respective-

ly, still remember the ’62 Storm like it was yesterday. I was only 5 years old and remember standing in the kitchen of our Hamilton Township home when Dad got the call that Long Beach Island had been hit hard.

It was Clarence Winklespecht. He and Ott Daniels had gotten on the Is-land via a dump truck the day after the storm but could get only as far as Bergen Avenue because that’s where the ocean now met the bay. Clarence told Dad he didn’t see any houses where the Harvey Cedars Marina once stood. That meant that Clarence’s and Ott’s houses were gone, too. Worse yet, Clarence didn’t see much stand-ing across from the marina, where our house was located on Cedars Avenue. My parents were devastated.

The following day, Dad received yet another call from Harold Appleby. Harold had fl own over Harvey Cedars in his plane and told Dad that there still was something standing there, but he wasn’t sure it was on the founda-tion. About a week after the storm, Dad got on the Island. His father was the superintendent of the Acme on LBI at the time, and he had secured offi cial paperwork so my dad could go on the Island with the National Guard.

Dad boarded a military truck in Ship Bottom. They were headed to the Harvey Cedars and Barnegat Light firehouses to drop off food. They dropped Dad off where the

Harvey Cedars Marina had been and said they would pick him up in three hours. Dad walked straight across Harvest Cove to our house on Cedars Avenue. Our end of the cove was all sand. Unbelievably, our house was still standing and had minimal water damage. This was probably due to the brick porch my dad and friends had built in Octo-ber 1961 on the entire back of the house, which faced the ocean. When the ocean broke through, it most likely hit the brick porch and fi ltered around the sides of the house, saving it from being washed away.

Throughout the next couple of weeks, Dad would make several trips to LBI, bringing an assortment of buns and pastries from his father-in-law’s bakery to the displaced work-ers of the Harvey Cedars Borough Hall now being temporarily housed in Ship Bottom. Each time he made his way to our house and worked to make it livable once more. The fi nal touch was hooking up the gas range to one of many propane tanks that he found washed up next to the Harvey Cedars Bible Conference. Dad also retrieved his and Clarence’s garveys, which amazingly ended up intact at the Bible Conference.

To this day my parents are still happily living in that little clammers’ shack on Cedars Avenue that weath-ered the nor’easter of 1962. Pictures of our house can be seen in the be-fore and after shots of the storm pub-lished in the December 1962 issue of National Geographic.

Susan Scully lives in Ewing, N.J.

Boys Will Be Boys

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Storm Storyand exciting adventure for me. But even I could see the utter devastation every-where. Some large object had fl oated and crashed through the large picture window that was a common feature of the Tuckerton Beach bungalows.

“Our living room sofa and other ar-ticles of furniture had fl oated and come to rest in twisted heaps far from where they belonged. The water line measured about 4 feet along the walls, which would have been over my head then. There was a thick layer of black muck everywhere. The one thing I recall viv-idly was the horrible smell that you sim-ply could not escape from. I remember the sad expressions on my parents’ faces as they tried to shovel the black muck from the fl oor into buckets and painstak-ingly cart them out of the house. I recall, since I was so young, there was nothing for me to do there, and nowhere to go to escape the sediment, debris, wretched odor and fi lth. I was upset over the loss of a couple of favorite stuffed animals that I had. As a diversion, and an at-tempt to get me away and occupy my mind for a bit, my mother drove us up and down the streets looking for them, to no avail.

“At that time, all the homes in the Tuckerton Beach development were

built at ground level, on a concrete slab. The lagoons were dug with no bulkheading of any kind. The bunga-lows were mostly sold to people from outside the area, as summer vacation homes. To add insult to injury, there were reports of looting in the aftermath of the storm.

“In hindsight, it baffl es me how the developer – who, I understand, took his profi ts and moved to Florida – was able to get away with building those homes at ground level. Surely, it was common knowledge to any local offi cial that the whole bayfront area was prone to fl ood-ing during severe storms, especially the dreaded nor’easters. It just goes to show the nonexistent zoning or safety codes of the day. No doubt, building street after street of plywood shanties kept a lot of the locals working, as did the house rais-ing campaign that followed.

“Our house was raised and rebuilt, but my father did not live to see the fi n-ished result. About six weeks after the March Storm of 1962, he suffered a fatal heart attack. He was 49. My mother and I often wondered if the stress caused by the devastation of our small home was a factor in my dad’s early demise. Fifty years later, I still have vivid memories of the devastation and still harbor many unanswered questions about the ethics of those who approved the building of homes at ground level in an area known for frequent fl ooding.”

The fun continues all day, start-ing at 10 a.m. with a Valhalla Pirate Meet and Greet photo opportunity. A Pirates Tools of the Bloody Trade workshop follows at 10:30 a.m., then Pirate’s Tale of the Flying Dutchman at 11 a.m. At 11:30 a.m., watch a whip show and cannon demonstration; at 2 p.m., a Scurvy Mutineers show breaks out, then a Pirates Pistol Duel at 2:30 p.m. There are a Pirates Pub Sing-along and Radio Disney AM 640 Grand Prize giveaway. All-day events include face-painting, crafts, shop-ping at a pirate’s marketplace and boat rides on Tuckerton Creek. Pirate grub also is available. Spend the day and live the life of a plundering pirate. Regular admission applies.

Enjoy clams, oysters, scallops and shrimp fresh from local seafood mar-kets during the two-day Baymen’s Seafood and Music Festival, June 23 and 24, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., pre-sented by the Jersey Shore Folklife

Continued from Page 28

Seaport Center. Family activities include carv-ing and boat building demonstrations, crafters, vendors, music, food and fun. The festival was voted one of the Top 10 N.J. Outdoor Festivals by NJ Coun-tryside Magazine. Check with the Sea-port for admission fees.

The annual Red Wine and Blues Festival is planned for June 30 from 3 to 8 p.m. Enjoy a tranquil evening on the boardwalk along Tuckerton Creek and sample wine from some of New Jersey’s fi nest wineries. Live blues mu-sic complements the mood. Crafters, vendors, food and boat rides are part of the experience. Special admission may apply.

Fall is a busy time at the Seaport, so if you are here for an extended autumnal season, check out the Antique and Classic Boat Show on Sept. 8 and 9., offering two splendid days of classic wood and fiberglass boat exhibitors, demonstrations, workshops, vendors, crafts, food and maritime activities.

For more information, call 609-296-8868 or visit tuckertonseaport.org.

— Pat Johnson

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Bayview Parkwill take place on Saturday at 6 p.m. Registration costs $15 before Sept. 15 and $25 on race day. Sunday will con-sist of a Triathlon/Duathlon at 7:20 a.m. sharp. Registration before Sept. 9 costs $70 for the triathlon and $60 for the duathlon. Registration on or after Sept. 9 costs $85 for the triathlon and $75 for the duathlon. Pre-registration for triathlon relay teams (three mem-bers) costs $95 and $65 for duathlon relay teams (two members).

“People are looking for fun things to do with their families, and that’s what we’re trying to provide,” said Bakum, while adding that if it weren’t for Mayor Joseph Mancini and Com-missioners Ralph Bayard and Joseph Lattanzi, none of these activities would have been possible.

“Bayview Park is a gem, and we want to use it to enhance the Island and its visitors’ experiences,” she said.

For more information about the upcoming events at Bayview Park, visit www.longbeachtownship.com or call 609-361-1000.

— Kelley Anne Essinger

special deals and discounts offered all season long at local businesses. For a complete list of participating enter-prises and their specific deals run-ning April 1 to Dec. 31, visit lbifest.com/2012wristbandpromo.

“The wristband promotion is re-ally a win-win-win,” said Kerzner. “We started out just trying to make it profi table for the hospital. But then we said, ‘Wait a minute, let’s make it a win for the person buying it and a win for the retailer selling it.’ It’s a triple

Continued from Page 22

LBIfest crown,” he added.LBIfest is presented by the alliance,

which is comprised of local business owners who are dedicated to making Long Beach Island a year-round attrac-tion for visitors and locals alike.

“We really want to excite the locals about (LBIfest), too,” said alliance co-chair Stacey Fuessinger. “Sometimes even a lot of them think there’s nothing to do on the Island. If we get the locals involved during the shoulder season, that will really help the community,” she added.

For more information about the alli-ance or LBIfest, visit lbifest.com.

— Kelley Anne Essinger

By PERDITA BUCHAN

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Random House, soft cover) has recently become a

major motion picture starring old favorites such as Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. “Old” is the opera-tive word here, as novel and fi lm follow the re-location of a group of British oldsters to India.

In her best seller Tu-lip Fever, author Debo-rah Moggach explored the tulip mania of 17th-century Europe. In The Best Exotic Mari-gold Hotel, she takes on something less glamor-ous but as desperately desired: an appealing place to spend one’s last days on Earth. If tulips were exotic to the denizens of Am-sterdam, India is just as exotic as a fi nal des-tination for a group of British pensioners.

The Marigold Hotel is actually a rundown bungalow in the city of Bangalore – which in the fi lm becomes the more photogenic Jaipur. Sprawling Bangalore is a mix of high tech, high rise, bazaar and slum, with little left of the legacy of the Raj.

The plan for “out-sourcing” old people is hatched by Dr. Ravi Kapoor and his cousin Sonny, a slightly shady Bangalore businessman. Ravi, a doctor with the British National Health Service, wants nothing to do with India. He is happily Anglicized, living in Dulwich with his English wife, Pau-line. However, he does desperately want to get rid of Pauline’s father, Norman, who is living with them, having been kicked out of a series of retirement homes. Norman is a

selfi sh, crude and randy old party who almost burns the house down by leaving a pan on the stove while he goes out to buy a porn magazine.

Persuaded to try the Marigold by visions of lush Indian girls, Nor-man arrives along with a full cast

of characters supplied by various twists of fate. Most of the Marigold residents are single women. Mu-riel Donnelly, for one, has lived all her life in south London, but south London has changed. Burgled twice and fi nally mugged, she fl ees the city to stay with her devoted son Keith, only to discover that he is in some kind of trouble and has disap-peared. Evelyn Greenslade has de-cided to take a chance on India on

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