WEB-LINK

November 13, 2012

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Waves break in front of a destroyed amusement park wrecked by Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 31 in Seaside Heights, N.J.

Hurricane Sandy left a long trail of destruction across the New Jersey shoreline. And it did a lot more than just flood houses.

Enlarge Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

What remains of the 1.2-mile boardwalk sits on the beach on Oct. 30 in Belmar, N.J.

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

What remains of the 1.2-mile boardwalk sits on the beach on Oct. 30 in Belmar, N.J.

In towns like Seaside Heights and Belmar, Sandy wiped out the boardwalks that line the beach. In places like these, boardwalks served as the commercial center knitting the towns together, and residents are wondering where to go from here.

Until two weeks ago, the boardwalk was the place to hang out in Belmar, N.J. Ann Summer was walking along the water with her husband this weekend.

“I think it was part of the heart of Belmar. Any time of year if it was a nice day, all of a sudden it would look like summer. There would be people jogging, riding bikes, walking their dogs, sitting on the boardwalk, reading newspapers … there were always people on the boardwalk,” Summer says.

That all ended when Sandy came to town. The storm splintered most of the boardwalk and scattered the pieces all over the shoreline.

Shaun McGrath and Peter Franconeri were standing along Ocean Avenue this weekend surveying the damage.

“I couldn’t get out of my house. The boardwalk was at my front door so I couldn’t open my front door,” McGrath said.

“The boardwalk was loosened, right? And in one wave it was just picked up and brought here, in one wave,” Franconeri said.

“Yeah,” McGrath said.

Pieces of the boardwalk now sit in the front yard of Franconeri’s condo complex. Franconeri asks me if I want to take one home as a souvenir.

“You want a small piece? I’m serious. We’re going to take a piece and write, ‘Gone to the beach’ on it,” Franconeri says.

Not far away sits a bench that once sat on the boardwalk and was swept here by the flood waters. The storm wiped out a pavilion that served as a kind of community center. It also destroyed whole restaurants and stores that once lined the boardwalk.

The destruction of the boardwalk is likely to be felt by Belmar businesses for a long time. The Mayfair Hotel sits across the street from what was once the boardwalk. The storm tore the siding off the building and flooded a basement clubroom. Today there are huge mountains of sand and debris blocking the access to the beach. Owner Pat Entwistle has stopped accepting most guests.

“Devastated. Right now I’m sure right now no one would want to come here to stay. Except the workers from out of town,” Entwistle says.

The same kind of destruction can be seen up and down the coast. In Seaside Heights, the boardwalk was largely swept out to sea and an iconic roller coaster was destroyed. Ironically, the most famous boardwalk of all, in Atlantic City, was largely spared. Over the weekend, the city held a kind of mass stroll along the boardwalk to publicize the fact that it was still standing.

City officials say the boardwalk was spared in part because of a dune reclamation project that blocked the water from coming too far inland. Still, Liza Cartmell, president of the Atlantic City Alliance, says many people think the boardwalk took a big hit.

Tourism is down. Cartmell says many of the city’s tourists usually come from New York and New Jersey, and they have other things on their minds right now.

“I mean, people just weren’t ready. They were sweating their electricity, they couldn’t leave their house. In the north, they were in gas lines. So it was a huge impact to us,” Cartmell says.

New Jersey officials say they will rebuild the boardwalks in places like Belmar. But with so much destruction, it could take years to complete. Gov. Chris Christie said last week that the rebuilding needs to be done in a smarter way to protect the beaches the next time a bad storm hits.

As part of our ongoing series Home Front, host Rachel Martin speaks with Spc. Brian Cannava of the National Guard’s 182nd Infantry Regiment. He, along with many other veterans, has been having a hard time finding work.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Finding lasting employment and the peace of mind that goes with it has proved a challenge for many of the men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years. It’s one of the issues we’ve been covering in our series Home Front.

STAFF SERGEANT JASON COPP: My name is Staff Sergeant Jason Copp.

CORPORAL TERRY NARCIS: I am Corporal Terry Narcis(ph).

CAPTAIN MICHAEL CURRY: I am Captain Michael Curry.

PFC MCCITRICH: PFC McCitrich(ph).

STAFF SERGEANT JEFF BARLOW: Staff Sergeant Jeff Barlow.

MARTIN: Throughout the year, we’ve been spending time with the men of the National Guard’s 182nd Infantry Regiment as they make the transition from soldiers to civilians. Today, to commemorate Veterans Day, I’d like to reintroduce you one of these soldiers.

SPECIALIST BRIAN CANNAVA: My name is Specialist Brian Cannava.

MARTIN: You remember hearing that WEEKEND EDITION followed Specialist Cannava to a job interview back in June of this year.

CANNAVA: Couldn’t find my brown belt that went with my shoes, so substituting – and my neck got fatter. So, these are the kind of things I realized this morning.

MARTIN: Brian Cannava is still unemployed – and he’s not alone. The unemployment rate for veterans who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan currently stands at 10 percent. Despite all the programs out there designed to find work for vets, Brian Cannava’s search has been frustrating. If you had to count, do you have any idea how many jobs you have applied for since you got back?

CANNAVA: Hundreds.

MARTIN: Really?

CANNAVA: Yes.

MARTIN: Have you had a hard time explaining on a resume or in interviews to potential employers why you’re qualified, how your skills from the military translate into a civilian job?

CANNAVA: I guess I really haven’t tried explaining it. I mean, it’s just like a summary. But to explain a deployment to somebody that hasn’t deployed is like not going to be something that I would put on paper. Nobody’s going to read, like, a 30-page resume, so.

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: Have you thought about how this really long job search has affected your relationships? Or has it affected your relationships with your family or friends at all?

CANNAVA: Yeah. Like, I don’t go out a lot. Like, people, like, try to get me to go out. So, like, I don’t. I don’t necessarily know that, like, the job search has anything to do with it. I just haven’t really been, like, interested in doing much, I guess, since I got home.

MARTIN: Have you thought about why that is?

CANNAVA: No. I mean, maybe I thought about it but I don’t know why.

MARTIN: Is there part of you that misses being deployed?

CANNAVA: Yeah, definitely.

MARTIN: Why?

CANNAVA: I guess it’s just like I have, like, a schedule, like, knew what was expected of me. I did it, its, like, purpose, I guess. Then I was, like, proud of what I was doing rather than just not doing anything.

MARTIN: Has it been hard to communicate that to friends and family, what you did over there?

CANNAVA: I just don’t communicate it.

MARTIN: Would you like someone to ask questions? Do people ask questions? Do people say, Brian, tell me what it was like?

CANNAVA: I mean, generally, like, people are not that interested. I mean, like, the question you get is, like, kids questions. Like, did you kill anyone, and, like, stuff like that. So, like, stuff you’re not really, like, interested in talking about. And, I mean, realistically, unless, like, you were there, like, you wouldn’t understand anyway. So, like, I think most of the guys I was with and probably most veterans in general don’t, like, try explaining in a lot of detail. And, like, I don’t think you could understand, so….

MARTIN: Do you think you would go back?

CANNAVA: I have given it a lot of consideration. If I were to go back, I don’t think I would go back unless I was currently full-time employed and I knew I could come back to that job, because I don’t want to waste – well, I shouldn’t say waste – I don’t want to spend another year away or longer to come back to the same situation.

MARTIN: That’s Specialist Brian Cannava. You can hear more from our Home Front series on our website, npr.org, and on Facebook@NPR Home Front.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

The dust hadn’t settled on Tuesday’s election when people started talking about the fiscal cliff, the expiration of tax cuts and automatic spending cuts set to hit at the start of the year. The fiscal cliff will dominate the political dialogue through the end of the year, at least.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I’m Rachel Martin.

Here’s a term you’re going to get really tired of in the next several weeks – if you haven’t already: The fiscal cliff. It’s a combination of automatic spending cuts and tax increases set to hit at the start of the year. That is, if Congress and the president fail to find a way to avoid it.

NPR’s Tamara Keith has this primer.

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Both House Speaker John Boehner and the president made it clear, they don’t want to go off the cliff.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: And I’m proposing that we avert the fiscal cliff, together in a manner that insures that 2013 is finally the year that our government comes to grips with the major problems that are facing us.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I want to be clear. I’m not wedded to every detail of my plan. I’m open to compromise. I’m open to new ideas. I’m committed to solving our fiscal challenges. But…

KEITH: But – and there’s always a but. There’s a fundamental disagreement between the two men and their parties about how to proceed.

OBAMA: I refuse to accept any approach that isn’t balanced. I’m not going to ask students and seniors and middle-class families to pay down the entire deficit while people like me, making over $ 250,000, aren’t asked to pay a dime more in taxes.

BOEHNER: Listen, the problem with raising tax rates on the wealthiest Americans is that more than half of them are small business owners.

KEITH: The president argues the American people support his position, and the exit polls from Election Day back that up. Regardless, if a deal isn’t reached there are real consequences. Taxes would go up on almost everyone if the Bush and Obama tax cuts are allowed to expire as scheduled in January, says Roberton Williams of the non-partisan Tax Policy Center.

ROBERTON WILLIAMS: It’s a big tax increase on high income people, a big tax increase on low income people, and people in the middle will get squeezed, too.

KEITH: In fact, Williams says 90 percent of taxpayers would see their tax bills rise, with an average increase per household of $ 3,500 a year.

WILLIAMS: Married couples will see a lower standard deduction. People with children will see a much smaller child tax credit. The high income households will see much, much higher taxes rates on ordinary income, and higher tax rates on their capital gains, and very much higher tax rates on their dividend income.

KEITH: And on the spending side of the ledger, there’s what’s known as the sequester; more than $ 100 billion in automatic across the board spending cuts – a trillion over 10 years – also set to start in January. The cuts would be split between defense and non-defense spending with Medicare and Social Security largely protected.

Todd Harrison is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

TODD HARRISON: The law specifically says, it’s a uniform percentage cut across all accounts.

KEITH: In defense, which is Harrison’s specialty, it’s a 10 percent cut. But he says the amount isn’t as much of a problem as the method. Under sequestration, the Defense Department can’t choose to eliminate a marginal program to preserve funding for something that’s a higher priority.

HARRISON: If you could do it rationally like that you could make a lot better decisions, than just having this uniform across the board cut. But the law doesn’t allow that.

KEITH: The same is true in non-defense spending. Under the sequester, education, air traffic control and National Parks are all treated and cut equally.

STAN COLLENDER: Look Ma, no hands theory of budgeting.

KEITH: Stan Collender is a budget guru and a senior partner at Quorvis Communications. He says if the country is allowed to fall off the fiscal cliff, the economy would be sent back into recession.

COLLENDER: This is not a way to run a railroad, let alone to run a country. That is to have a gun to your head or rather to put a gun to your own head.

KEITH: There are seven weeks and counting to figure it out.

Tamara Keith, NPR News, The Capitol.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.