"Help Arrives For Sandy-Wrecked Town As Others Resist Dunes"

"TOMS RIVER, N.J. — In one of the largest beach repair projects in U.S. history, the federal government has begun dumping so much sand on a stretch of the New Jersey shore that it could fill a football stadium more than five times over.

Yet even this $128 million project isn't enough to repair the damage Superstorm Sandy did to the Jersey shore. And not everyone wants the help.

Few places in New Jersey suffered worse in Sandy than the Ortley Beach section of Toms River. A historically vulnerable part of the shore whose beaches are prone to worse-than-normal erosion, the community was devastated by the 2012 storm. And nearly five years later, things remain far from normal.

The neighborhood, a popular mix of year-round and summer vacation homes, remains pockmarked by vacant lots and the wooden frames of half-built houses.

But help is finally here: On the beach where the former police chief watched in awe as walls of water flowed across the barrier island from the ocean to the bay, a long-awaited beach replenishment and dune reconstruction program has finally begun. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began pumping sand Monday from an offshore location onto Ortley Beach's painfully narrow beaches."

Wayne Parry reports for the Associated Press June 4, 2017.