Great Storms of the Jersey Shore

A semi-coffeetable size book, this is a history of all the major storms that have wreaked havoc along the Jersey shore, with special emphasis on the 1944 hurricane and the 1962 nor'easter, both of which did tremendous damage. The '62 storm lasted 3 days - 6 tides - which seemed relentless. The survey ends with a warning about the future: with all the recent development along the shore and a major storm overdue, a nightmarish disaster is bound to occur sooner or later. (The last time a hurricane made landfall in New Jersey was in 1903 at Brigantine.) Filled with fantastic photographs.

In March of 1962, my father drove us down to Atlantic City to visit my grandmother and see the damage. It made an indelible impression on me. I cannot drive the Jersey coast without wondering how much of the ugly, new beachfront development will survive a great Jersey storm. Like many other shore lovers, I secretly hope not much of it will.The most hair-raising tales in this wonderful book are from that 1962 whopper. But these great storms have hit Jersey shores throughout the ages with regularity, with & without warning, everywhere on the coast, changing the coastline & serving important ecological purposes. Even Keansburg, a bayshore town, has been knocked flat. So enjoy the stories & eye-popping photographs. But don't overlook the other message the authors are conveying: We build castles on the sand.

What can I say about this book? Something around the lines of... I absolutely think this book is one of the greatest ever written! Going to OCNJ was always the highlight of my summer. A week right before the 4th of July - what better to watch fireworks then right out on the boardwalk? So obviously when I now spend my summers in Stone Harbor, I still go to the boardwalk at OCNJ just for old time's sake. So in Stone Harbor, I went to the nearby Atlantic bookstore. There was a long section of books on the Jersey shore and so I picked up this one. I recognized some of the storms, knowing how these had gone through some of the times I had been at OCNJ. Most of them however I didn't know, but nevertheless some of them DID come back to me. So I decided that this book will, although in the years I've been coming, I definitely will buy it -be the best book ever!

This book is a great book. It mentions all the great storms of the shore. Not a town is left out. There are many excerpts that are true and fabulous. This is a five star book!

From when I was a year old to ten years old, my family went to the Jersey Shore every summer for a week. Ocean City often had pictures in their boardwalk shop's windows of "rip-roaring storms", "boardwalk fires", and "Hurricanes through the OCNJ years". I was fascinated by these pictures, but in my eleventh year we didn't go to Ocean City after all. It's years later that I was in a bookstore in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, and while waiting for my kids to find their book selections, I picked it up and leafed through it. There were those pictures again, and as fast as I could I bought the book to have. Now it has become a great coffee table book and I love it!