'Life Moves On': Sandy Survivor's Fight To Go Home, 10 Years Later

BRICK, NJ — Nick Honachefsky saw the photos from Fort Myers Beach, Florida, of the devastation left behind by Hurricane Ian in late September.

Boats overturned and tossed about like children’s toys. Trees and power lines down all over. Empty stretches of beach where homes once stood.

They are images that were all too similar to the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Honachefsky lived in Camp Osborn in Brick when Sandy came ashore 10 years ago, obliterating homes and leaving debris and upended lives in its wake.

Ten years later, Honachefsky has rebuilt his life. It’s not the life he had back then. He doesn’t have a home steps from the beach – he lives in Red Bank now. A freelance fishing writer who has traveled the world, he has parlayed his experiences into a fishing show that has been picked up by the Discovery Channel.

And most importantly, he has built a life filled with love; Honachefsky married in 2018 to a woman he had known in college and reconnected with after Sandy.

“Life moves on,” he said in a phone interview. “You just have to keep rolling.”

While life moves forward, he doesn’t want people to forget about the havoc Sandy wreaked in many lives. While thousands of people have rebuilt their homes, or raised them, and returned to the summer parties and fun, there are untold numbers of people who have never returned to the homes they left behind in the days before Sandy hit, often with just a handful of belongings because they believed they would be back soon.

“I definitely have some PTSD,” Honachefsky said. The annual anniversary of the storm stirs up emotions anyway — emotions from a 10-year fight to go back to his home, even as he has moved on with his life.

“It’s weird, because you get this rush of anxiety when there’s a hurricane,” Honachefsky said. Seeing the photos of the damage from Ian — he has felt similarly after other hurricanes that have struck since 2012 — “It’s like a car accident all over again.”

Camp Osborn was little-known outside of Brick before Superstorm Sandy struck Oct. 29, 2012. It quickly became one of the enduring images of the storm, with fires fueled by broken natural gas lines consuming beach cottages that hadn’t been washed away by the storm surge.

The beach cottages dated back to the early part of the 20th century, and were a summer community where everyone knew each other. Grandparents and parents and children crowded in to enjoy the sun and sand and make summer memories.

Honachefsky was among the few who made the community their home year-round, storing his vast collection of fishing equipment, thousands of photographs and hundreds of clippings of his prolific freelance career as a fishing and outdoors writer, as well as hundreds of personal mementos, like the rosary from his first Holy Communion and his Villanova diploma.

Sandy consumed nearly all of it. When he was able to see what was left of his home on Nov. 5, 2012, the only items he was able to retrieve were a piece of a guitar and his dog’s water bowl. All that remained was the plot of sand he was paying a mortgage on the median between the northbound and southbound lanes of Route 35. (You can read his blog about his experiences in the initial aftermath of Sandy.)

Honachefsky fought to return to the plot of land he bought in 1998 but found himself caught in a particularly vexing mix of politics, government red tape and the internal strife of a private homeowners association.

In 2014, he vented his frustrations with the process just before the second anniversary of Sandy:

“If I had a timeline on when it would end, I would have that hope to reach for,” Honachefsky said at the time. “But I wonder, am I holding onto something that won’t happen for 10 or 20 years?” Read more: 730 Days Later, It's Still Day Zero For Camp Osborn Man Left Homeless By Sandy

On the seventh anniversary, as government officials were celebrating the return home of other survivors, Honachefsky was still mired in the mess: 7 Years Later, Some Sandy Victims Still Not Home

In 2021, he finally got the answer, when years of legal battles between Brick Township, the association and a nearby property owner finally were settled long enough for him to make the decision that enough was enough.

“I finally sold it,” he said. On Aug. 13, 2021, the first date he could finally do something with the property he’d been paying a mortgage, property taxes and homeowners association fees on, he listed the 40-by-40 plot that once held his 750-square-foot bungalow. “I got an offer I was comfortable with and sold it.”

It was a necessary end to merry-go-round that wouldn’t end, he said.

“I had a RREM grant,” Honachefsky said. But the Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation, and Mitigation Program grant was based on the rebuilding costs of 2012. In 2021, the lowest estimate he received was $350,000 – far in excess of the grant.

He said in selling the property he “cut an anchor. … I feel free for the first time in a while.”

“Life moves on. You gotta move forward,” he said. But Honachefsky said straight out that mindset isn’t a Pollyanna, blinders-on-to-reality vision.

“There’s been a lot of days of being really pissed,” he said. “There were a lot of days that really sucked,” especially when he was moving from place to place, sleeping in his Jeep, couch-surfing with friends and family, wary of wearing out his welcome.

“You can’t let the craziness drag you in,” Honachefsky said.

As he listens to the news reports from Florida, he’s dispensed insights from his experience to his friends who are just at the start of what will likely be years of recovery. Things such as get signed up with FEMA immediately so you’re on their list of people who need assistance and accept help from anyone who offers.

“Write down everything you remember you lost possession-wise; insurance companies will ask everything down to the toaster to determine payout,” he wrote in a Facebook post of tips. “It took me 10 years for resolution after Sandy. Be prepared for the long haul but pray things have gotten more streamlined.”

Honachefsky’s life has gotten more streamlined, spending his time with his wife, Emily, whom he reconnected with in 2013, after they dated briefly in college. She has been a huge support in the travails over the Camp Osborn home, he said, and they are hoping to move back to the Shore from Monmouth County at some point in the future.

His other focus is his fishing work. After losing thousands of dollars’ worth of rods and reels and assorted tackle, he has been able to rebuild his arsenal thanks to support from friends. His writing career continues, and his television show, "Saltwater Underground with Nick Honachefsky," is filming its third season, and after two on the Outdoor Sportsman’s channel is scheduled to have six episodes on the Discovery Channel, though the exact air dates have not yet been determined.

While life is moving on, he doesn’t want people to forget about the way Sandy devastated lives.

“Is this the last time we'll talk about Sandy? I hope not. We should never forget about it,” he said.