Hedrich's Hive

I want to start today with where I live.  I live in a town called Northfield, New Jersey.  It is located in South Jersey on the mainland between Atlantic City and Ocean City.  I only live a few miles from several different beaches.  The closet water to us is the bay which is a few miles down the road.  A few blocks from my home is the Margate Causeway which is one of the bridges that takes you to Absecon Island.  Absecon Island has 4 cities on it:  Atlantic City, Ventnor, Margate & Longport.  Brigantine is an island to the north of Absecon Island and Ocean City is an island to the south.  Then there are several more islands all the way down south to the tip of Cape May which is the southern point of New Jersey.  All of the pictures I am posting are from the cities and barrier islands near me.  The only way in and out of the islands are bridges. (All of the bridges are still closed.  Some may be for a long time because of the severe damage to them.)

Yesterday started ok for us with rain and wind but as the day went on the wind and rain definitely picked up as Sandy got closer.  We had winds over 70 miles for a good part of the day.  Everyone I knew was scared to death about what was going to happen as the day went on because the forecast just kept getting worse for us.  Many of the people on the islands evacuated but there are always those who stay.  I think many regret it this time.

My home and my town were very lucky this time.  We have lots of trees in our town so we did have wind damage around town and lots of trees down.  A few trees fell on homes with damage to roofs and porches.  (We had a horrific storm in June, called a derecho, which took all summer to clean up from because it was so bad.)  This storm was still fresh in our heads since a few homes are still being rebuilt so everyone around here took this storm very seriously.  We had no warning for the last storm.

When Sandy actually hit around 8pm last night she was actally a little south of the original prediction so the eye came right over us.  For those of you who are not familiar with hurricanes the eye is very quiet.  Don't be fooled.  A short time later the back end of the storm came around and all **** broke loose.  It was a long night.  My daughter slept in my arms because it was so loud.  A storm is always so much scarier at night because you can't see anything.  It was this part of the storm that did most of the damage to our town.

The island are a completely different story which I will post about later with lots of new pictures.

My family was very lucky.  No one got hurt and we have very little property damage.  I can't say the same for my family and friends.  They are still waiting for the ok to return to the islands to see if they even have homes left.  I grew up in Ventnor so I rmemeber being a kid and having to evacuate.  Even as a child it is a horrible feeling leaving your home :(