An animation via NOAA’s GOES-13 satellite of Hurricane Sandy nearing landfall on Oct. 29, 2012. Source: NESDIS

Superstorm Sandy: 10th Anniversary Memories and Images

8 min readOct 28, 2022

On a dreadful Monday night 10 years ago, Superstorm Sandy inundated and, in many cases, devastated low-lying coastal areas in New Jersey, New York and other locales.

The catastrophic storm caused 159 deaths, disrupted critical water and electrical services, and led to $65 billion in damages, the National Centers for Environmental Information says. Sandy was the fourth-costliest tropical cyclone to strike the U.S. on record (as of August), NOAA Satellites notes.

Back then, I was virtually in the thick of the storm, albeit safely ensconced in my Asbury Park Press newsroom chair in Neptune, New Jersey. I was a veteran environmental writer who often tracked and wrote about big storms. I had an EnviroGuy blog, and EnviroGuy began posting about the budding storm days before its center made landfall near Brigantine in Atlantic County, New Jersey.

It was a very busy time and Sandy’s timing could not have been much more troublesome. The gigantic post-tropical cyclone arrived after dark, during a full moon and close to high tide on Oct. 29, 2012. For hours that day, I tracked Sandy’s progression toward the highly vulnerable Jersey Shore, posting online updates every 15 minutes or so.

A day earlier, Gary Szatkowski, then chief meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Philadelphia/Mount Holly office, issued a pointed personal plea in a briefing package entitled: “Very Dangerous Hurricane Sandy October 28th — 31st 2012.”

• Sandy is an extremely dangerous storm. There will be major property damage, injuries are probably unavoidable, but the goal is zero fatalities.
• If you think the storm is over-hyped and exaggerated, please err on the side of caution. You can call me up on Friday (contact information is at the end of this briefing) and yell at me all you want.
• I will listen to your concerns and comments, but I will tell you in advance, I will be very happy that you are alive & well, no matter how much you yell at me.

Over the ensuing days, weeks, months and years, I and many other reporters wrote or coauthored seemingly countless stories about Sandy’s stunning and myriad impacts. The pace of the reporting was relentless and there never seemed to be a shortage of Sandy topics to cover, uncover and update. That is no surprise since our paper focused on Monmouth and Ocean counties— arguably the most damaged in the Garden State — and we won some national and other awards for our coverage.

Several stories I wrote or coauthored and a video I produced remain on USA Today’s website, including Sandy left N.J. shore with massive mold problem, Pollutants, debris still plague coastal lakes after Sandy, N.J.’s coastal lakes hammered by Sandy and 2 years later, Sandy improvements slow but steady.

“The entire Northeast has been impacted by Hurricane Sandy in one way or another,” the Northeast Regional Climate Center said 10 years ago. “While the coastal storm surge and winds were responsible for the majority of impacts, the precipitation and snowfall totals associated with the storm were also impressive. The persistent high winds were responsible for extremely high waves on the Great Lakes, as well.”

Sandy also caused some major coastal flooding in New England, where I live and the region I focus on now. Record storm surges were recorded in Bridgeport and New Haven, Connecticut, according to a 2013 National Hurricane Center report on Sandy. The storm surge was 6.2 feet above normal tide levels at Providence, Rhode Island, 5.5 feet at Fall River, Massachusetts, 4.57 feet in Boston, 3.32 feet at Fort Point, New Hampshire, and 3.53 feet at Wells, Maine.

Hurricanes and Tropical Storms in New England, With the Chances of Them Coming Within 50 Miles

At the entrance to New York Harbor, a buoy recorded waves more than 32 feet high, according to NOAA.

For decades before Sandy, New Jersey had often been fortunate as hurricanes and other tropical cyclones typically passed far enough offshore to reduce their impacts, or weakened (like Irene in 2011) in the nick of time. Storms often passed when tides were lower or moons were not full or new. However, a damaging December 1992 nor’easter served as a loud wake-up call and the news media, including the Asbury Park Press, often covered the threats posed by major storms. Journalists also wrote about the vulnerability of the many low-lying coastal areas, chronic beach and dune erosion and the high rate of sea-level rise at the Jersey Shore.

Hurricane Gloria in September 1985 is one example of a storm that could have had a much greater impact if it had passed the Jersey Shore at high tide and come closer to the coastline.

Months after that tropical cyclone, I wrote a story about a 1986 National Weather Service technical report on Gloria’s potential storm surge.

“Gloria was one of the strongest (North Atlantic) hurricanes of the century, yet the area never received the full fury of the storm,” partly because the storm struck land near Babylon, Long Island, at close to low tide, the report says. “The damage due to coastal flooding and beach erosion would have been significantly greater if Gloria traveled more slowly and arrived at high-tide on Friday night.”

Assuming Gloria’s eye had moved 40 miles west of its actual path during high tide, a model “indicates that a storm surge of up to 15 feet would have (occurred) throughout northeastern New Jersey and New York City. The Delaware Bay Evacuation Study suggests storm surges over 20 feet in the Raritan Bay of New Jersey. If this scenario had materialized, Gloria could have been the worst storm to hit the area this century. The extent of flooding and damage incurred by the storm would have been catastrophic, and the resultant beach erosion could have significantly altered the coastline of New Jersey and western Long Island.”

Doesn’t that sound like Sandy-type flooding and damage?

Six years before Sandy, Kirk Moore, my former Asbury Park Press colleague, and I wrote a three-part series — HURRICANES: WHAT IF WE GET HIT? — that delved into a powerful 1821 hurricane.

The part one headline: “N.J.’s long lucky streak may end soon, experts say.”

The subhead: “Pages from the past offer dire warnings.”

Can something like Sandy happen again or can more catastrophic storms develop? The answer — a resounding yes — seems obvious.

Source: National Weather Service New York NY office

“Storms are strengthening faster now than they did in the past,” NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory tweeted Thursday.

The hurricane intensification rate increased significantly near the U.S. Atlantic coast from 1979 to 2018, and “projections suggest that the environment will increasingly favor hurricane intensification near the Atlantic coast,” a new lab study says.

By 2050, a higher sea level “will cause tide and storm surge heights to increase and will lead to a shift in U.S. coastal flood regimes, with major and moderate high tide flood events occurring as frequently as moderate and minor high tide flood events occur today,” a 2022 “Sea Level Rise Technical Report” says. “Without additional risk-reduction measures, U.S. coastal infrastructure, communities, and ecosystems will face significant consequences.”

“Major” (often destructive) flooding is expected five times more often in 2050 than today, the report says.

Today, let alone in 2050, a storm similar to the 1821 hurricane would have a substantially greater impact than Sandy.

1821 Hurricane Slammed U.S. East Coast

Still, government, communities, businesses and citizens can take many steps to prepare for future storms and respond to accelerating sea-level rise and climate change.

Here are many more images and photos that cover Sandy and its impacts: