Hurricane Sandy Aftermath - Bayonne, NJ

My hometown didn't avoid Sandy's wrath, either. Here are a few videos taken by various residents.

Down the waterfront where the Elco Marina used to be but is now occupied by condos with their own private marina:

View from 16th Street Park. At the 2:25 mark the person landed at the lower level of the park and it's already underwater with surges coming in from Newark Bay. By the time the storm was at its peak the water completely covered those low fences and went part-way up the hill:

A nut driving around in total darkness after the blackout. It's because of people like him that the mayor called a 6pm-6am curfew during the 8 days without power:

First Street. This street floods during every storm, including sun-showers! Old-timers on the block own their own sandbags and know when to start putting them out. But they didn't do a bit of good with this storm. The street borders the Kill Van Kull, and the people who live here can look out their front windows and see Staten Island, a place that really got hit bad by Sandy. The mayor called for everyone on First through Third Streets to evacuate BEFORE the storm even hit, so it's their own damn fault if they got stuck and had to evacuate with water around their knees DURING the hurricane!



And this last one looks like it was shot within walking distance of my home. I walked right past that tree at the 2 minute mark the same day this video was shot!

Too bad the camera is messed up and everything is echoed and off-color:

The power was out for 5 days for some of the city, 8 days for most of the city, and here we are, more than 2 weeks later, and some people are still without electric.

One of the long-term problems on the east side of the city is the oil. Bayonne was heavily industrialized, the city of oil refineries. Standard Oil, now known as Exxon, started in Bayonne, and they weren't the only refineries in town. When they all closed up and left, they left a lot of contaminated land behind. When Sandy flooded the eastern part of the city it pushed a lot of that oil in the contaminated land out, leaving an oily residue on everything it touched. Not only have a lot of homes been condemned but a church was devastated, too.