10 years ago today, the final warnings went out to
towns all over New Jersey – it was time to evacuate before Superstorm Sandy
slammed ashore. That included Belmar, which saw devastating impacts all over
town.
The day before the storm
hit, the computer models kept showing New Jersey as a ground zero landfall
point. Across the street, amateur photographer Bill McKim made sure he had
plenty of batteries and SD cards to capture nature's fury.
McKim started documenting the storm during the first
high tide, and it was clear, this was not going to be anything he'd seen
in his lifetime. Waves came up to the boardwalk, 12 hours before the
devastating high tide, which matched the arrival of the storm surge, during a
full moon.
“I took pictures of the boardwalk, and I said, ‘it's never going to look
like this again,’” says McKim. “There's no way
this thing is going to last, it's going to be a totally changed town.”
The evening of the storm,
McKim evacuated to Allenhurst, but came back at sunrise the next day, he saw
what he said resembled zombies, people stunned walking around on a changed
landscape.
One of his most powerful
memories happened a day or two after the storm when then Mayor Matt
Doherty stood on his front lawn, overlooking the destruction, saying, "There will be a boardwalk here in time for next year's Memorial Day Holiday.” And there was.