Atlantic City looks back on Superstorm Sandy 10 years later
Atlantic City looks back on Superstorm Sandy 10 years later
Ten years after Superstorm Sandy slammed into New Jersey, causing massive devastation along the shore towns and inland, Atlantic City says it's fully recovered and thriving. Residents and those who were there for the generational storm, however, still remember the damage it caused.
ATLANTIC CITY - Ten years after Superstorm Sandy slammed into New Jersey, causing massive devastation along the shore towns and inland, Atlantic City still isn't quite fully recovered.
"It was a devastating storm, we’re still feeling some of the impacts," Mayor Marty Small said.
The city had to fully rebuild areas decimated by Superstorm Sandy, including a $60M sea wall project that was built up to 16-feet high to better withstand intense storms in the future.
"There’s bulkheads along the entire back bay that are under construction now or will be built in the next year," Mayor Small said. "There’s pump stations as well, one that will be awarded by city council next month, more than $60 million. Drains about 850 acres of the city."
The Atlantic City boardwalk near the intersection of Atlantic and Maine bore the brunt of Sandy's wrath, but you would never know it nearly a decade later.
"Before this area could never be developed, the water would lap over the first couple blocks of this area when there was a major storm, there was really no significant protection," Small explained. "Now it’s totally protected, we had a storm couple weeks ago and there was no water in the area."
While most of the physical damage inflicted by the generational storm has been repaired, the emotional scars are still raw with residents who witnessed Sandy first-hand.
"You could see where the waterline was and that’s where we had to cut out everything from the waterline down," Joe McNamara said. "I just remember taking out the floors, really hard work."