The Wind is Northeast, Again and Again . . .

Say you know someone with an eating disorder.  What they really are is very organized and systematic- orderly- about eating, it's just that their way of organizing things may be detrimental.  A self-proclaimed anorexic, for example, is likely someone who eats a lot less than average.  They do the same ordered pattern everyday- eat less, eat less, eat less- and get extremely skinny.  On the other end of the spectrum, there are some people who do the same pattern- day after day, after day, after day- and they get extremely unhealthy.  And then you have people who are extremely diverse- they eat some junk food here and there, but they exercise, they take the stairs once in a while, and those people tend to not be so extreme.

NE wind, again, fair weather NE wind, AGAIN

What's the wind?  Northeast.  Hey, how was Long Beach Island?  Uhh, damp and dreary the wind was northeast, again.  Hybrid-storm Sandy had N and NE wind, and was followed by another low pressure with N and NE wind.  Now, since at least Tuesday the 13th, the wind has been from the N to ENE for 8 consecutive days, and is forecast for one more.  There is one area in the world where something like this would not be too unusual, which is the tropics.  Where the trade winds blow it's like NE today, E tomorrow, NE the next day.  The only thing that swings the wind around to the W in the tropics is a hurricane.  See, I look at the houses on pilings that look like North Carolina, flat beaches where there never used to be, and day after day of NE winds right now.  And then I would go fishing or something, but I can't do that.

High pressure NE winds

A high pressure area over eastern Canada has not been too motivated for at least the past week, and neither has a stationary front near the Carolinas.  Between the two weather features, persistent NE winds have been directed at New Jersey.  That's kind of off for November when weather systems usually move along faster, and the prevailing wind between storms is from the W.

When I saw this weather map midday with the storm due in the evening, I quietly said oh ****

I usually don't like to make guarantees, but I have confidence in saying no one really 'heard about' the giant fetch of E winds over the Atlantic Ocean due to a blocking, or stuck, high pressure near Greenland, of which Sandy was only a part.  It wasn't just Sandy bringing in the water- NE winds behind the storm extended across nearly the entire Atlantic Ocean from Ireland to New Jersey.  The only other time I saw a map with that was from the 1962 Great Atlantic Storm- but that was a high pressure and one HUGE storm.  This was a high pressure and three smaller storms, one of which was giant, including Sandy, a low in the central Atlantic, and a front moving through the United Kingdom.  I was aware of all this stuff when I saw this map midday on Monday, when the waves were still hitting the dunes at low tide, and the highest storm surge was going to hit exactly at a full moon high tide.  And it wasn't just Sandy coming in- it was 3,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean.

There was a reason the play on words 'Frankenstorm' was being used to describe Sandy.  Compare the image of Sandy as a 'hurricane' with 1989 Hurricane Hugo as a hurricane.

So there was a high pressure that was stuck near Greenland forcing the entire Atlantic from Ireland into New Jersey.  And then there was a storm that was one of the most confused mass of rotating wind and clouds ever observed.  And now, the wind is stuck out of the NE day after day, and is forecast to be NE for the 9th consecutive day, tomorrow.  And I can't go fishing or surfing right now, so I am forced to put a lot of my energy into the weather, which is needed to break the patterns that it keeps getting stuck in, however, I don't believe I am the one that could provide all that force.  It takes a lot of people who have their head in the correct place to get an anorexic to eat again, or to get a 799lb person not to eat again.  And it takes even more to get those people to eat correctly and have happy lives, but it is possible.  It takes a lot of people to break their own patterns to get high pressure systems to move again, and to not have the wind NE for 9 days in a row pushing the waves back under broken houses on pilings.

Change the tempo, but never miss a beat.  If the wind is going to be NE a lot, I will use it to my advantage.

I believe in some hocus-pocus that no matter how horrible things are or seem to be, there is always an opportunity to make things better, and that a choice to make things better is available every moment.  So long as you are not dead, you have the choice of making this world around you more vibrant, energized, healthy, and a wonderful place.  Or there is the option of having the wind get stuck from the NE for 9 days, one week after a northeaster and a hybrid storm with NE winds, and you can have NE wind every day so that the remainder of the crumpled houses get washed away into the ocean.  There is the option of making people cry because their house is gone or because the bills to clean the first floor are through the roof.  Another option is to knock a person's house down, not tell them why or who did it, and then give them some checks and a handshake.  These are the times that try men's souls.

The Year Without a Fall

The year without a fall, 2012.  Following the year with a devastating summer drought in the center of the country, and the year with a record lack of summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.  Coming after the summer in March heat wave last spring, which followed plants blooming during January in Chicago.  And before that were the summer heat waves and droughts in 2010 and 2011 that cost, I don't know who paid for it, but those events cost billions and billions of dollars to mitigate.  And before that was Canada's warmest and driest winter in history.  Of course, people in the Northeast may not have known about that one because they were too busy shoveling the snow that was supposed to go to Canada.

But no matter how much I read about the drought and the damage it does, or about the ice-free Arctic Ocean, or about too much rain somewhere- things I now read about frequently- and I read about how homes and businesses are ruined.  This one died, that one died.  I read about it so much I was like 'yeah Texas looks like Mars right now from the drought, and North Dakota looks like a Great Lake from the flood' but those places always seemed so far away. 

As much as I could read the words and make pictures in my head to understand, it was only in my head.  I could make an image of the dusty soil, smell it, in my brain, but then I'd walk across the street, climb the steps over the dune, and go surf in a large body of water.  Everything outside of me looked ok, smelled ok, I could still hear the traffic, so whatever.  I was reading about, imaging about the drought here, the lack of ice here, the too much snow there, but I wasn't experiencing those things.

The new Mantoloking.

Until now.  You can read and read and read and look at maps and pictures and hear stories and watch television.  And you can hear about how the largest tributary in the Amazon almost dried up a few years ago, yeah yeah whatever.  Or about how farmers in Texas had to ship their dying cattle away because there was no water blah blah blah.  It's all somewhere else, it's not me, it's them, whoever they are, I don't know them.  And then it's your turn.  It's you.  You're the one cleaning up the shriveled up chickens in the yard.  Suddenly, you're the one who is ripping out the first floor becuase the water got too high, because there was too much water at once.  And then the rush of knowledge is overwhelming, because experience is a more complete teacher than some words and pictures on a screen.

My lifelong recurring dream of being able to see the waves from the house came true.  I take that to mean my other lifelong recurring dreams will also come true.

Getting bused into the island the other day, coming over the Mantoloking Bridge and seeing a giant open space where the inlet was already filled in, was something.  There were cranes, huge things, and lots of equipment.  It was strange and didn't look like home.  Police were everywhere, construction crews, and the National Guard was in sight almost continously.  One parking lot had been turned into an operations center and another was filled with a mountain of sand and debris.  The air stunk of deisel.  The effort looked extraordinary.  Since I have such an obsession with the weather, I used some time on the bus to think about the storm that was repsonsible for all this effort I was seeing, since I like to get to the root of things.

When the poles are cold, the line between the poles and tropics is stronger, and extratropical cyclones and tropical cyclones tend to be in their assigned places.

When the poles are cold, extratropical cyclones and tropical cyclones, in other words storms that have certain qualities, tend to stay in their assigned places.  It may seem odd, but usually the colder it is in Canada the warmer it will be in Florida.  That's because for as much as cold air in Canada wants to rush down to Florida, warm air from the tropics wants to rush towards the pole.  The battle between warm air moving north and cold air moving south tends to keep things where they should be.  A powerful hurricane may make it farther north than is usual, like in 1938, 1944, 1954 or 1960, but the storms in those years had the identity of a hurricane.

When the poles are warm, now, things get mushy and homogenized.  So you get storms whose identity is made from parts of both.  It this case it was the worst: broad wind field (extratropical) of strong winds (tropical).

With the poles warmer, nowadays, the division between the poles and the tropics is a lot miushier.  It's not like extratropical cyclones and tropical cyclones swirl around with a placard saying I am an extratropical cyclone or I am a tropical cyclone.  The storms just are, and there are certain similar qualities that humans observe and then classify the storms as either an extratropical cyclone or a tropical cyclone.  Like male and female.

And then you get a storm that comes along and it's like is that a guy or a girl?  I think it's a guy, but it looks like a girl.  Maybe it's a girl, she has nice legs, but it could be a guy.  What is it?  Is it an extratropical cyclone or a tropical cyclone?  It kind of has fronts, but it is also warm around the center.  The wind is high, but it should be a lot higher for how low the pressure is.  What is it?  Boy or girl?  Extratropoical or tropical?  What do we call it.  It's something between.  I never used to notice them before, now I am seeing them all over.

It was hard to believe that I was on the beach in November and was questioning whether or not I should go fishing.  However, I'm glad someone was trying.

The water was surprisingly clear and clean.

So 2012, for me, is the year without a fall.  No fishing.  No surfing.  No being near or in the ocean during what is normally the best season to do those things.  I felt like I was intruding when I went for a drive to look at the water yesterday.  And I got a very sure message that I was, which means I may not go to the beach again until the major repairs are over, even if it takes months.  All I could think to say to myself when I walked on the beach was that it looks like somewhere else.  It's somewhere else.  That's the same thing I used to say about the flood in Australia or the heat wave in Russia in 2010.  It's somewhere else.  It's somewhere else.  Now, IT'S HERE.

The Great Storm of 2012

This information was helpfully recovered.  Though it has been a week and several days since the storm, it is hard to reach a saturation point with awe of the Great Storm of 2012.  However, from here the focus is on where to go next in regards to life on a barrier island.

The Great Storm of 2012.  It was Hurricane Sandy inside a giant northeaster.  Really, the storm wasn't just a hurricane so to say 'Hurricane Sandy' without saying anything else is incomplete.  This was a giant swirling mass of wind over 1,000 miles.  Its identity was somewhere between a northeaster and a hurricane.  A blocking high pressure near Greenland forced the storm into New Jersey, piling up the entire North Atlantic on our shore.

The center of the storm, the Hurricane Sandy part, turned northwest somewhere north of Cape Hatteras.  Winds were already high.  Before the power went out at 3:00pm, the TV showed a satellite image of the huge storm.  Winds had increased to 90mph with gusts to 115mph, and the forward speed increased to 28mph.  Pressure was 941mb, the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane.  It aimed squarely for New Jersey.  It was due to strike in the evening- at the same time as the full moon high tide.  It was a perfect storm.

I knew something was wrong in the morning.  I'd never seen the water so 'high'.

The waves were already crashing over the dunes three hours before high tide

The walkover at dunes at Osprey Lane being eaten away

The ocean was just taking and taking



The view from the Frederick's deck before dark.  Almost all of the dunes were gone already.  Winds were gusting to hurricane force.

Brick 2 looked as bad as the '92 storm and the worst was yet to come

Here comes the ocean!

The first big wave going down Osprey Lane

The ocean coming down the shoulder of Route 35 in front of Todd's house

I went back to the Frederick's and their dunes were gone.  A big wave shook the deck.  I got out of there as fast as I could.  The wave chased me down Osprey Lane to Route 35.  I was frightened at that point, high tide wasn't for almost an hour and forty-five minutes.

I couldn't take any pictures during the high tide.  It was probably the scariest thing I have ever been through in my entire life.  There was a very real chance that something was going to go horribly wrong.  The water would not stop coming- the ocean was filing up Route 35 North, the bay was rising up the driveway.  High tide wasn't for fifty minutes, yet the road was white with ocean foam.  The ocean was coming from Mike and Ellen's driveway, the water tank, Osprey, a river of white.  How high is it going to go?

I looked out from the third floor of the house.  Normally, the ocean is a tame line of inky black behind a giant dune.  For most of my life I've had a recurring dream that I'd wake up in that room and look out to see the ocean coming around the water tank where it would meet the bay under the house.  I moved the shade and couldn't believe my eyes.  It was happening.  The dream I've had my entire life was happening.

Through the dark I saw a giant wave crash into the dunes and spray a story into the air.  A moment later it came around the water tank into Route 35.  I looked up again at the ocean between Kennedy's and John's house.  The normally small black line of ocean was instead filled with mountains of white water half as high as the house, it was scary to look at.  Another wave smashed into the dunes and came around the water tank into Route 35.  I ran downstairs.  Jim said the ocean just met the bay in the driveway.  The dream came true.

I couldn't look again.  The next hour and a half, which would get us an hour past the high tide, felt like forever.  Just waiting for the tide to turn, waiting for the ocean to stop coming.  Finally by 9:30, an hour and a half after high, the water started to go down.  I walked outside and was relieved until I noticed an orange glow in the sky.  What is that?  Oh no.  Fire.

I thought the wind didn't get us, the water didn't get us, but fire will.  The wind shifted SE as the storm made landfall, blowing straight up from a fire.  I heard an explosion and saw a flame.  What a nightmare.

Fire.  And the wind just switched from E to SE, blowing it towards us.  This is the devil's storm.  Smoke was reaching over our house and it stunk.  We could see flames from the second floor.  If that's Faber Lane we're going to burn, the wind is blowing it right at us.  We have to go north.  It was horrible, thinking how is my Grandma, who is in her 80s, going to walk up the road through the ocean, sand, hurricane winds, and driving rain to get away from a fire.

Finally the ocean stopped, so I went to find the source of the fire.  It was a wicked walk down Route 35.  I was surrounded by the devil, by evil.  It was as black as could be aside from the ocean foam and orange glow  from the fire.  The wind was groaning, and would moan like someone shouting.  The electric lines were slapping and hissing.  I trudged over piles of sand before turning the corner at Brick 3 to see a house completely in flames.  Camp Osborn.  It looked like the gates of hell.  Embers were flying as far north as Todd's house, but the fire looked 'contained enough'  There was no sleeping that night.

The ocean was on one side of the driveway and the bay was on the other.  It was tense watching the water rise around the cars, but they made it.  The water, the fire, there was no sleep.

Route 35 the next morning



Massive dunes were gone

All of the sand.  Gone.  Just like that.

The ocean broke through this garage and into Osprey Lane

Osprey Lane

The new view walking up Osprey Lane to the beach.  There used to be dunes, now there's nothing.  Osprey Dunes no more.

Some houses now have a beach view

A lighter moment

Looking south at Faber Lane with the Thunderbird in the background.  Looks like North Carolina or something.  Totally foreign.

The ocean broke through the first floor of the St. Joseph's by the Sea retreat house

Brick 3.  Where the ocean went piles of sand followed.  Notice the smoke from the Camp Osborn fire.

Looking north from Brick 2.  Giant dunes that stood for years- as long as I can remember- are totally gone.  It looked like somewhere else, not home.

I was in shock when I saw what the ocean had done to the beach.  Huge dunes were completely gone, either taken away or pushed into the streets.  Since the dunes from Brick 1 to Brick 3 were some of the largest on the island, I could only being to imagine how bad it was elsewhere.  I've seen the ocean for over 20 years and have seen all its moods and faces, it's my best friend, but I didn't recognize it.  There was never anything like this.

Somewhat in shock, dazed with an hour of sleep, and wanting to get away from the smoke blowing up Route 35 from the fire, I decided to walk north to see how the Mantoloking Bridge was.  Maybe I could find an escape route.  I started the two-mile walk in smoky air, looking at the refuge of clear air ahead.  The damage got progressively worse until I began to see destruction.  I eventually lost track of where I was.  It was that bad.

Wow.  I've only seen things like this in pictures of the 1944 hurricane of the 1962 Great Atlantic Storm.  Now I was seeing it in person.

Oceanview Avenue was the first really bad wash through.  There were broken gas lines hissing everywhere.

I was living the 1962 storm, complete with the old car in front of the yellow house.



Route 35

I've never seen the bay so high.  Looking west from Route 35 North.

Everywhere I went I could see the ocean

From the split north the road was buried in one to four feet of sand



The cover of the book

It got worse as I continued towards Mantoloking proper

Princeton Avenue.  No need to park the car and walk over the dune to check the surf anymore.

Downer Avenue in Mantoloking

Looking like tropical destruction north of Downer Avenue

This was the view from the porch of a man and wife who survived the storm

As I got close to where I thought the bridge would be it was getting harder to tell where anything was.  It was very sad.



The destruction in Mantoloking was incredible.  It was hard to believe I was walking along Route 35 with all the sand, crashed teleophone poles, wrecked homes, and whatever else there was.  When I saw the sign for the Mantoloking Bridge I was in shock, it was unrecognizable.  Where was the road?  The pines looked shifted, like the entire land had moved.  I've been up that road countless times but felt totally lost.  The trees didn't look right.  I continued by flipped cars, parts of a house, and downed poles.  And then I saw a river of water with rapids in it.  No way.  No way.  Oh my God.  An inlet.

 A new inlet through Mantoloking.  Incredible.

I met an off-the-grid guy who survived the storm with some neighbors.  We were in disbelief.

It looked like somewhere else was all I could think.  It looked nothing like the Mantoloking I regularly pass through.  Everything was so flat.  The once great dunes I thought were impenetrable were flat.  The beach was flat.  The surf zone was flat.  And here is an inlet.  I looked west, but didn't see the Mantoloking Bridge.  The land was displaced, houses blocked it, trees, it was very confusing.  I met an off-the-grid guy who told me he was really lucky that he made it through the high tide.  We introduced ourselves, but didn't say much other than wow can you believe this.  Man, he said.  This is what man does.  I turned around and started the two-mile walk home, failing to find the Mantoloking Bridge and a way to leave the island.

I've never seen the bay so high for so long.  The day after the storm.

What used to be a huge sand dune is now a clear view to the waves

Flattened beach

Watching the waves from Route 35

Camp Osborn burned for a second night, unreachable because of the new inlets and debris everywhere.

The second morning at Osprey Dunes.  So weird.

Forty-five degree poles at Brick 3 where the ocean met the bay

House in the road.  Camp Osborn.

Through wind, waves, and fire the Thunderbird remians.

The remains of Camp Osborn



By the second day there was nothing left to burn.  The gas flame kept raging.

A flattened beach and a different looking pier

Deauville

Bay Boulevard in Lavallette

House in the road, Lavallette.  Getting to the 37 Bridge was like going through a maze.  All I wanted to do was get off the island.

Another house in the road, Lavallette.

Leaving the island, lucky to be alive and well.

The Great Storm of 2012.  While attempting to know the purpose of the Great Storm is a lofty endeavor, what the storm is, is a line in the sand between eras at the shore.  The era before the Great Storm, and the era after the Great Storm.  That is what it will be.  Life at the shore before the storm, and life after the storm.  Just like that, the consciousness of those who have a part of themselves at the shore has changed.  Not many things have such an impact on so many people, that's the power of the weather.

This information has been recovered with appreciation