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Floods and Storms Are Ravaging the Jersey Shore. Why Do We Keep Building It Back?

When Hurricane Sandy rammed the Jersey Shore on the night of Oct. 29, 2012, saltwater fisherman Nick Honachefsky was living in Camp Osborn, a community of tiny bungalows a mile south of Mantoloking on Barnegat Bay Island. Earlier that day, Honachefsky had taken a bottle of Captain Morgan rum with him on a walk down the beach, figuring the arrival of a hurricane meant it was time to start drinking and take a few pictures. The news that cops were banging on doors, telling people who were insisting on riding out the storm that they should write their Social Security numbers on their wrists so their bodies could be identified later — plus a phone call from his worried mom — made Honachefsky decide to spend the night at an ex-girlfriend’s house on the mainland.

A few hours later, the storm’s surge roared on top of a high tide across the skinny barrier island, opening broad new inlets as the Atlantic poured up Barnegat Bay. Most of the bungalows that made up Camp Osborn, including Honachefsky’s 750-square-foot house, were washed away. A friend of Honachefsky filmed the storm’s arrival. “He’s like, ‘I think I did see your house. It was the blue one, right? Yeah, it’s floating down Route 35. It’s on fire,’” Honachefksy remembers. When he was finally able to return to the site of Camp Osborn 10 days later, Honachefsky saw 30-foot flames of gas still shooting out of the ground. “It looked like the oil fields in Kuwait,” he says. An exploding transformer had kicked off a fire that continued to burn; there was no gas shutoff valve for the island.

By Susan Crawford. Read the full article here.

Urgent: Sign the Sierra Club’s Petition to Protect the Graniteville Wetlands!

The Sierra Club’s Atlantic Chapter joined the Staten Island Coalition for Wetlands and Forests

CLICK THIS TO SIGN THE PETITION

The Sierra Club’s Atlantic Chapter joined the Staten Island Coalition for Wetlands and Forests, in appealing to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the New York City government to reverse their decisions to permit the project to develop the Graniteville Wetlands. and to save this species-rich wetland until it can be protected as a New York City park.

It is dangerously naïve to think New York will not have more destructive storms. New York City needs to preserve and enhance all its wetlands areas.

Send your message today using the link provded!

Or enter the following link in your browser:

https://bit.ly/2MV0FVX

#HelpSaveGranitevilleWetlands Twitter Storm In Partnership with Anthropocene Alliance

Thursday, October 1st from 12 PM – 2 PM: #HelpSaveGranitevilleWetlands Twitter Storm.

We are partnered up with the Anthropocene Alliance–the largest network of flood survivors– to create a twitter storm to get Governor Cuomo’s attention.

Visit https://bit.ly/3jkg1y9 to learn how to participate in under 10 minutes!

RSVP on Facebook by clicking the following link: https://bit.ly/2SdObaT

DECEIVED: The Destruction of Graniteville’s Forested Wetlands

By The Environment TV.

This video, from Staten Island’s Coalition for Wetlands and Forests, asks the question: Has Staten Island’s NYC Councilmember Debi Rose betrayed her constituents, the community of Graniteville.

For over four years Gabriella Velardi-Ward, an architect and environmentalist, among other fields of knowledge, has lead the fight to save these wetlands and forests based on many reasons: flooding is only one of them.

Through her fights in the court and street demonstrations, she and her members have stopped the bulldozers from tearing down the trees that held back the heavy waters from torrential rains and hurricanes until now. Although the group had the backing of the community, it’s elected officials overrode their wishes and allowed the builders to rip out the trees and pack the ground. Why? And can this still be reversed?

Staten Island, The Forgotten Green | DiverseCITY

By CUNY TV.

On this episode, the stalled construction of a seawall and how it could lead to lives lost on Staten Island. The fight to save a very important wetland on the borough’s north shore from being bulldozed for a big box store. Why an effort to create a more expansive bluebelt is also a labor of love. Putting a fresh face on Freshkills Park, once the location of the much maligned “Staten Island Dump.” Then we profile a group that’s spent nearly half a century advocating for the island’s protected parkland.

I’ve Got A Secret

By The Environment TV.

Gabriella Velardi-Ward, founder and coordinator of the Staten Island Coalition for Wetlands and Forests (SICWF), let’s us in on the secret: The Graniteville Wetlands are being destroyed and this greatly effects the people living there RIGHT NOW.

Homes have been damaged and destroyed and there are rumors that some people have actually died during the recent hurricane, IDA, yet the local media has not covered this.

She, and members of her group who live there alongside her, have started interviewing and documenting what has happened and are trying to get the word out there with little success. But they are trying and continue to assist their neighbors as they have for the past 4 years or more.