Ocean Grovers overflowed the Community Room for an update on storm recovery. Janet Whritner, right, greeted arrivals and gave out name tags. Photos by Mary Walton

By Charles Layton

Michael Bascom, Neptune’s chief financial officer, said Saturday that Neptune is recovering from Hurricane Sandy faster than most other Jersey shore towns, and that the storm’s impact on local taxes should be minimal.

“I still don’t see the tax impact of this storm being much more than a penny” per $100 of assessed value, Bascom told the Ocean Grove Home Owners Association at its monthly membership meeting.

He said the total cost of Neptune’s response to and recovery from the hurricane will be between $5 million and $7 million and that FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) will reimburse the Township for at least 75 percent. Insurance on Township facilities will also help. Whatever expenses aren’t reimbursed will be apportioned over the next five years’ municipal budgets.

“We are in full recovery mode in Neptune at this point,” said Bascom, who coordinated the preparations and response as director of the town’s Office of Emergency Management. He said all Township employees — including librarians, code enforcement and construction officials, tax officials, engineering and public works employees — became emergency response workers in the wake of the storm.

Although Sandy was extraordinarily destructive, impacting “properties that had never been impacted before by a storm,” Neptune was better prepared than most other towns, he said, and therefore recovered faster than most.

The flooding was “exactly where we thought it would be,” which allowed police, fire and EMS officials to go door to door in advance, warning those in danger to get out. They were rescuing people “right up to the last minute, until it was unsafe to do so,” he said.

Neptune was able to clear streets and roads faster than most places, which made it possible for the electric company to move in and restore power faster. At one point, he said, Township supervisors became truck drivers in order to give their employees a few hours of rest.

No one in Neptune died as a result of the storm, although two people were severely injured, due to a blown-out gas pilot light, when they returned to their damaged home prematurely. “When they drove their car in the garage their house exploded,” he said.

He said 772 homes in Neptune suffered significant damage from the storm, including 18 in Ocean Grove. Seven Ocean Grove homes were deemed unsafe. In Neptune as a whole, 121 homes were deemed uninhabitable — most of them in Shark River Hills. Shark River Hills also had “probably 100 boats” blown onto people’s lawns or into their houses, he said.

At least 400 trees were down following the storm, and more than 100 of those were entangled with electrical wires, which hampered the town’s ability to clear them off streets. This, along with gas and water leaks, made streets unsafe to navigate for several days.

Michael Bascom: “We are in full recovery mode”

Bascom said the biggest expense of the cleanup is the enormous amount of brush that has to be removed, processed and disposed of, at a total cost of about $2 million. He said about two-thirds of that brush disposal work still remains to be done.

Mayor Randy Bishop, who introduced Bascom, gave lavish praise to all of the Township’s employees. He also said the Township was especially well-prepared in advance of the storm. Home Owners president Ann Horan and various members of the audience also complimented the Township on its well-organized response.

Horan said that after the storm Bishop and Bascom were on the phone daily with her and with leaders of other residents organizations throughout Neptune, keeping them informed. The problem, she said, was that, with power out, the Home Owners Association had limited ability to pass on information from the Township to the residents. For the future, she said the Home Owners Assocation intends to organize an emergency information system based on volunteers on each block going door to door.

Bascom and others also made these points:

• The dunes along the Ocean Grove beach proved to be far better protection against the storm surge than dune systems in most other towns on the Jersey coast.
• The Township expects FEMA to approve repairs to the Wesley Lake wall at the North End, which was already damaged and suffered further deterioration from the storm. Bascom said as soon as FEMA gives authorization the Township will begin repairs.
• Neptune officials have been helping the Camp Meeting Association apply for FEMA’s help in repairing the boardwalk.
• The lakes to the north and south of Ocean Grove are silted up and will need to be dredged to mitigate future storms.
• Neptune schools reopened sooner than those in most other towns, partly because Neptune managed to clear its roads more quickly.
• Neptune suffered no looting problems after the storm. Bascom said police had an especially strong presence in those neighborhoods that had the worst damage and were therefore most susceptible to looting.
• No one in Neptune is living in shelters now. “We feel we’re ahead of everybody else in recovery,” Bascom said.
• If anyone would like to volunteer their time and skills to help with recovery, Neptune has a volunteer coordinator — Monique Burger. She can be reached at 732-988-5200, extension 298. She can be emailed at mburger@neptunetownship.org.
• The Township is still accepting donations for storm victims. It has a donations center at 1924 Heck Avenue, although it is not open full hours. Tax assessor Bernard Haney is in charge of receiving and distributing donations.
• Neptune has hired part-time employees, under a federal grant, to help with cleanup and with expediting the approval of applications for construction permits. Also, until December 11, as part of the recovery action plan, fees for building permits have been waived.