Ortley Beach

It's been a fight of more than two years for the members of the Ortley Beach voters and taxpayers association (OBVTA) seeking a piece of a 6.5 acre tract of land currently owned by the Ocean County Utility Authority (OCUA) to turn into a public park for residents, and that fight continues this past week into another month.

A Jersey Shore model whose ad was at the center of an Old Navy that sparked a Twitter storm had the last word on the matter.

First ravaged by Sandy, now blitzed by a blizzard, residents of Ortley Beach and neighboring North Beach in Toms River get word that they're targeted for $4,900,000 in federal Superstorm recovery aid.

You've heard repeatedly about shore damage whipped up by the blizzard of January 22-23. You either agreee, or disagree, about uniform dune reinforcement for the Jersey coast. Before-and-after images of Ortley Beach, where there is no permanent solution, offer a stark impression of the tightrope some residents walk.

The storm and the sand on the Toms River beachfront wrestled to a draw this weekend.

One of the biggest critics of Toms River's storm protection efforts is praising the Township's efforts to install a sand berm a few weeks before Hurricane Joaquin and the Nor'easter were predicted to impact the Jersey Coast over the past weekend.

Three weeks before the now near-miss Hurricane Joaquin was set to hit the Jersey Shore, Toms River officials began planning for the storm by not only building a strong defense for the people inland but for the beaches as well.

Ortley Beach residents are running out of patience as they continue waiting for New Jersey to begin the federal Army Corps of Engineers replenishment project almost three years after Super Storm Sandy.

The next step toward mending Ortley Beach's Superstorm wounds is about to be taken. Bayside Park, decimated in the October 2012 disaster, officially reopens July 18.

Fed up with inaction on storm protections for the Toms River shorefront, two citizens' groups collaborate for a July 18 protest march in Ortley Beach that they hope will draw crowds of equally-irate Superstorm survivors.