More than three years after Hurricane Sandy, Long Branch celebrated the reopening of its boardwalk.
LONG BRANCH - The day after Hurricane Sandy pummeled the Jersey Shore, city officials went out to check on the beachfront and found a destroyed boardwalk and the bluffs upon which it sat severely eroded.
"As soon as we saw it, we knew we had a herculean task in front of us," said Howard Woolley, the city's business administrator.
While Long Branch officials and residents watched other towns race to get their boardwalks rebuilt in time for the following summer, Mayor Adam Schneider was clear from the beginning that the city would be taking a more methodical approach to rebuilding its boardwalk.
The older portion of Long Branch's boardwalk in Dec. 2012, about a month after it was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. (Rob Spahr | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) "My goal isn't to get it done quickly, it's to make sure it is done right," Schneider told NJ Advance Media in Dec. 2012.
On Monday afternoon - flanked by city, county and state officials and wearing shorts and sandals - Schneider cut through a ceremonial ribbon to finally mark the reopening of the boardwalk, which was the last in New Jersey to reopen after Hurricane Sandy.
"There were a lot of times that I wanted it to get done already and where I was getting frustrated. But we also had to do it the right way, and we did," Schneider said Monday, adding the new boardwalk was designed to withstand a storm similar to Hurricane Sandy. "There's going to be another Sandy. I may never see it, and I hope I don't. But it's not 'if', it's 'when'. One of the things I learned during Sandy is that building codes work. Everyone thought Pier Village would get washed away in a hurricane - it didn't. And the newer homes that were elevated and designed properly survived the storm, this will too."
Woolley said project was initially projected to cost as much as $25 million - with FEMA reimbursing 90 percent of that cost - but after George Harms Construction Co. of Howell won the contract with the lowest bid of $14.4 million, the final cost is now expected to be about $18 million or $19 million.
The new section of boardwalk is a little more than a mile long and ranges between 16 and 20-feet wide in spots - compared to the previous boardwalk that was 10 feet, 6 inches wide - in order to better accommodate foot traffic. It sits on approximately 1,300 pilings, driven 10 feet into the ground, that help elevate it to between 25 and 30 feet above sea level.
"Not to take anything away from any other towns, but they're basically street, boardwalk and then beach - everything is basically on the same level," Woolley said. "Here, we're 30 feet above sea level and so we had substantial design constraints that we had to work with. I don't know of anyone else who had the same challenges we had. There were some with a lot of similar challenges, but none had challenges as severe as we had."
Being able to overcome those challenges and see visitors enjoying the new boardwalk finally gave city officials a reason to celebrate on Monday.
"This is just tremendous," Woolley said. "To see this become a reality and to see people down here, it really makes you feel good."
Schneider said Long Branch enjoyed its most successful summer ever, in terms of beach revenue, in 2012 and even with the boardwalk in shambles and beach access limited, the city continued to enjoy extremely strong summer seasons since Hurricane Sandy.
With the new and improved boardwalk now open, the city could be primed for a record-breaking summer tourism season.
"I think we're going to have more people in Long Branch this summer than we've ever had before," Schneider said.
Rob Spahr may be reached at rspahr@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TheRobSpahr. Find NJ.com on Facebook.