By MARY SAYDAH

Co-Editor-in-Chief

With the summer in full swing, I keep hearing that Hurricane Sandy is a thing of our past.

I am a big supporter of the “Stronger than the Storm” campaign and I do believe that the Jersey Shore is stronger than the storm. After hearing from so many people that Hurricane Sandy is no longer relevant, I realized it isn’t their fault that they believe that. But it isn’t true.

As a journalist, even if I am still in high school, I realized it’s my job to make sure those stories don’t go untold.

The stories include the 41,000 families who are still displaced from their homes as a result of Sandy. There are the 185,000 impacted businesses in New Jersey. The stories of those who lost jobs, those who are struggling to keep their businesses going and the stories of those who lost their way of life because of a destructive storm. According to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, there were 346,000 homes damaged.

Growing up on the Jersey Shore for 17 years, I was ecstatic to see the beaches rebound after the storm. Watching the rebuilding of Belmar’s boardwalk and Sandy Hook’s showers were just a couple of the stepping stones I saw on the road to recovery. Also on that road, though, were a few things that reminded me of the stories already forgotten, and those things were the food trucks now scattered on Sandy Hook’s concrete, bearing New York license plates.

For those of you who have never visited it, Sandy Hook contained a restaurant called Sea Gulls’ Nest for years. I was lucky enough to work at the family-owned business last summer. Along the stretch of six miles of beach, tourists and beach-goers alike have visited the snack stands, or gone to the rentals shack to rent an umbrella or buy a last minute towel at Max’s Beach Store, where I spent my time last summer.

On May 29, their website www.haveyouseenoursunset.com updated that they would “probably NOT open” this summer.

Sea Gulls’ Nest was only one of many businesses and families who had their life uprooted by the storm, but it just happened to be one I was close enough to know about.

The first beach on the Jersey Shore coast, Sandy Hook, is located in the small town Highlands. With most of the town below sea level, it was mostly underwater after the hurricane. Of the 1,200 homes and businesses in the town, 800 were damaged so severely that they would have to be lifted, according to NBC.

Last Nov. 11, a mere two weeks after the storm, the town held a “Hope for Highlands” benefit, which raised $35,000 for victims of the storm. There, I ran into one of my friends, whose family was one of the 800 who had their home severely damaged.

Nick Lukacs, 16, lived in Highlands his entire life, until Hurricane Sandy. Prior to Sandy, he evacuated like many other families in Highlands, to towns more inland. Over the night, he remembered playing his guitar to keep calm, but on the morning his parents went back to check on their house, he knew from his mom’s panicked expression that they lost everything.

Keeping just the clothes he wanted, Lukacs said he didn’t care as long as his family was OK. Within three months, Lukacs’ family moved to North Carolina.

“We plan on staying in North Carolina because it’s a lot cheaper to live there,” he said. “And it’s nice and quiet and we like it.”

Sea Bright Mayor Dina Long called the damage to that nearby town, “catastrophic.” Even with an evacuation in place before the storm, many families didn’t leave, like the Osgoodby family.

“In the morning we woke up to everything drenched and destroyed,” said Grace Osgoodby, 14, of Sea Bright.

Her family stayed for five days in the house they lived in for over 50 years — a house they knew they could no longer live in, eating only what could be cooked on a gas stove.

Finally, they found a home in Bricktown, and Osgoodby changed schools for three months.

“Those three months were rough,” she said. “I had to start a whole new school almost halfway through the year, make new friends and figure out where we were going from here.”

Osgoodsby’s grandparents went back to their home in Florida and Osgoodby moved into a rental condo a block from her old house. But the summers aren’t quite the same for her with all the stores and restaurants gone.

The plan from here? Osgoodby and her mom are looking for a place to stay in Florida, that way she can enjoy her high school years “without moving from place to place.”

Sandy has left its mark on families and businesses across the state. To the journalists, I ask that you continue to tell the stories. To everyone else, support the businesses that are working to be stronger than the storm. Help them take back the space where the out-of-state food trucks have moved in.