By MaryAnn Spoto/The Star-Ledger
on December 03, 2012 at 7:30 AM, updated December 03, 2012 at 3:58 PM
Traffic cones block the entrances from Route 36 into the Gateway National Recreation Area, where a small sign announces the park is closed.
Occasionally, curious passersby venture beyond the yellow cones to sneak photographs, and Park Service officials usually indulge them for a few minutes before shooing them away.
That may be the best look people get at the popular landmark in Sandy Hook for some time. Hurricane Sandy left so much damage in its wake that National Park Service Officials say they are uncertain whether the recreational area visited by more than two million people each year will open next summer.
"It’s a day-by-day thing as we evaluate it," Pete McCarthy, assistant park superintendent, said one day last week. "We’re going to try to open for summer."
The 7-mile-long peninsula, dotted with historical buildings and lined with long beaches, picnic areas and multi-use paths took an especially savage blow because it is bordered by the Shrewsbury River and Raritan Bay to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east.
"The problem was, we basically were attacked on two sides," McCarthy said.
A month after the storm deluged the narrow peninsula with a tidal surge more than 13 feet at mean high tide, crews are still clearing parking lots blanketed with sand. The waves may have been even higher, he said, because that measurement was taken just before the gauge broke.
Of more immediate concern to park officials are unexploded ordnance that may have been exposed when so much sand washed off the beaches, once an Army testing ground for ammunition.
Pete McCarthy, the unit coordinator of Sandy Hook for the National Park Service, said he's not sure the popular beach and recreation area in Monmouth County will reopen in time for the 2013 summer season.Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger
Four of the park’s six concession stands were damaged by floodwaters up to six feet high. So were the fire department, ranger station and theater.
Ten days after the storm, parts of Sandy Hook still had about 2 ½ feet of standing water, and weeks after the storm, crews were still pumping sand and water out of the sewage stations.
The seven-mile-long macadam and cement path popular with runners, bicyclists and rollerbladers was heaved or washed out in at least seven places because of severe erosion.
Workers are still checking the pipes that carry water throughout the peninsula for damage, and the sewage treatment is also being evaluated. McCarthy said that without a functioning sewage system, they would not even try to turn the water back on — even if the pipes weren’t damaged.
At what is known as Area C, where summer concerts are held, the 40-foot-by-16-foot stage is washed away.
"We’re still looking for it," McCarthy said. "We’re still looking for a lot of things."
Linda Slater, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service, said 500 people were assessing the damage to the beaches, historic buildings and other cultural resources.
In the end, Slater said, Sandy Hook would be among the other national parks competing for scarce federal resources to rebuild. For now, she added, there is no damage estimate.
"There’s a list of things that need to be done," she said. "We have to prioritize what needs to be done."
When park officials begin to describe the damage, they almost doesn’t know where to begin.
The ferry dock at the northern end of the peninsula was picked up by the surge and almost folded in half. At the entrance is a huge crater where there once was sand, exposing pipes.
Once the storm passed, it took crews — along with help from the U.S. Coast Guard — five days to push the mountains of sand to the side of the roads to make them passable.
Drifts of sand a quarter-mile long and nearly six-feet high ran intermittently for more than 3 miles on the main roads, McCarthy said.
When the roads were finally passable, crews came in to stabilize some of the buildings, including those on Officers Row, where porches of the former military homes sustained varying degrees of damage, from minor sagging to complete washouts.
Despite the vast amount of destruction, McCarthy remains hopeful.
"The one thing we’ve taken from this is it’s the people’s park," he said. "It still will be Gateway. It still will be Sandy Hook, but it might be changed a little."
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/12/sandy_hook_may_remain_closed_n.html
