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9th & Ocean

It was a sense of the familiar with a side of strangeness.  Nearly four months after Hurricane Sandy had done her cooch dance around these parts, we finally were able to walk along Ocean Avenue in Belmar this afternoon.  The town advertised specific businesses that were open along the thoroughfare.  I had driven to Ocean Avenue the other day, but the barricades were up prohibiting pedestrian and vehicle traffic.  Al wanted to check things out. We walked down 8th Avenue toward the beach, and saw folks walking and jogging along Ocean Avenue. We assumed it was okay to walk along the beachfront, and proceeded to walk south.

A police van was constantly patrolling the area, basically making sure that everyone stayed on the western side of the street and on the sidewalk.  We walked down to the south end and back.  In a nutshell, there was a lot of cosmetic damage to many of the homes and businesses.  One home had some major structural damage, and an overhang from Mike's Pizza had collapsed.  The entire beachfront is basically a construction site.  The progress they have been making in constructing the new boardwalk is amazing: the pilings are installed to 14th or 15th Avenues, about 75% installed.  The boards are currently being installed on the northern end of the boardwalk, and they look great.  The boards are a nice, deep brown color and will look beautiful when the light posts are put back up.

Fortunately I had my camera with me.  Still need to go through all of the pictures and see which ones to upload later on.

All in all, it felt good to see what's going on there, and it wasn't as depressing when everything first happened.  I felt a glimmer of hope that things will be back to the way they were; it's just going to take some time.

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