8/27/13 Reports, Tweets, and Testimonials – LBI

Moderator Reports  

Group 1

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Group 2

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Group 3

There was great emotional intensity in the ways that the participants expressed their personal stake in the forum. One after another they described property loss due to Hurricane Sandy, the anguish of displacement, frustration with their inability to receive adequate assistance to repair or rebuild, their dilemma over whether to stay or move.

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Group 4

The majority felt that homeowners “had gotten the short end of the stick.” They believed that the money that the state received short changed homeowners and was spent on repairing the piers and boardwalks which primarily benefited tourism. The group strongly felt that new buildings should not be allowed to be built on vacant sites. This rebuilding of damaged homes would be permitted.

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Group 5

Common hopes expressed by the group include preserving LBI as it was – both in terms of a natural beach and as a community, holding additional forums to generate more intelligent ideas about LBI’s future, respecting and adapting to climate change, and forming a political consensus that balances all interests, prevents bad or unwise building practices, and provides for short and long term successes. Most of the group’s fears were the flip-side of the above hopes, such as political paralysis impeding any real change, property owners not rebuilding safely, and the impracticality of preserving LBI as it was.

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Live tweets from the forum

Storify presentation

 

Video Testimonials

 

 

Press

 

An Experiment in Democracy on the Jersey Shore

I observed a remarkable experiment unfold this past week at the St. Francis Community Center on Long Beach Island, New Jersey. Although this tiny community located on a barrier island escaped major devastation from Hurricane Sandy like towns further north up the Jersey coast, damage was substantial and rebuilding is still underway.  Read more

 

‘Rethinking the Shore After Sandy’ Forum Takes Input in Brant Beach

The easel where people could leave haikus at the post-Sandy forum held in the St. Francis Center Tuesday held this one: “Sandy came/Sandy went/I came/I remain.” Next to it, a “Wailing Wall” had attracted Post-it notes of challenges that have not gone away. Insurance woes was one of half-a-dozen, and a need to treat second homeowners more equitably was another. Read more

 

For one LBI resident, life is better post-Sandy

Elizabeth Burke Beaty exudes infectious positivity, a trait that may puzzle some in light of the circumstances she’s faced over the last 10 months.

Superstorm Sandy destroyed her family’s Long Beach Island home and most of their possessions, but they found something else: community. Read more

 

Residents gather on LBI to talk about Sandy aid

Rebuild, adapt, or retreat? That’s a question ordinary people at the Shore considered Tuesday as the last in a series of public forums on rebuilding after Sandy wound up with two final events in hard-hit southern Ocean County.

People who came out to the events, sponsored by public radio station WHYY, spoke of a desire to see more help, not just for themselves but for neighbors. Read more

 

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