Tracing Sandy's Timeline: 10 Years After The Storm

NEW JERSEY — Over the course of nine days in late October 2012, Superstorm Sandy moved north through the Atlantic Ocean to become the first hurricane in decades to make a direct hit on New Jersey.

What started as a tropical storm in the Caribbean turned into one of the most damaging storms to hit the United States as it merged with a winter system before turning lives upside down and remaking the face of the Jersey Shore.

Sandy became the 18th named storm of the 2012 hurricane season and the 10th hurricane. Its morphing from a tropical storm to an extropical cyclone that turned left and plowed into the state made it a rare meteorological event.

Ten years later, here’s a look at the timeline of the storm that caused nearly $70 billion in damage — one of the most expensive storms in U.S. history — and killed more than 200 people on its trek from the waters off Nicaragua to Canada, where it finally dissipated, gathered from National Weather Service reports.

Oct. 22, 2012: Tropical Storm 18 is identified in the Caribbean.

Oct. 23: The tropical storm begins to strengthen and moves slowly north.

Oct. 24: Sandy strengthens to Category 1, then makes landfall in Jamaica at 3:20 p.m. One person is killed as the hurricane passes over the eastern end of the island. It then strengthened to Category 2, with sustained winds of 110 mph, before making landfall in Cuba, where 11 people died.

Oct. 25: Sandy continues north, dealing glancing blows to Haiti (where 54 people died), the Dominican Republic (3 deaths) and Puerto Rico, where one person died. It was this day that the European model first predicted Sandy would hit New Jersey.

Oct. 26: Sandy skirts the Bahamas (2 deaths) then weakens to tropical storm strength as it first heads northwest then northeast. It’s this date, three days before landfall, where the models agree and say Sandy is headed for New Jersey.

Oct. 27: Sandy strengthens again, becoming a Category 1 hurricane again. The storm’s sustained winds stretch 100 miles out from the eye. In New Jersey, preparations were underway. Gov. Chris Christie declares a state of emergency and orders evacuations of the barrier islands up and down the coast, but there is resistance.

Oct. 28: Sandy’s sustained winds are now 1,000 miles across and flooding is happening from the Outer Banks in North Carolina to Long Island. Residents had until 4 p.m. to leave the barrier islands, which are starting to see waves coming over in some areas. By 9 p.m. the ocean reaches the boardwalk in Seaside Heights.

Oct. 29: By sunrise on Monday, Oct. 29, people who had been doubting the forecast were swinging into action to buy ice and making efforts to prepare for Sandy’s onslaught, which was hours away. Winds were gusting and trees along the coast were starting to come down. Authorities were urging people to get off the roads because of the dangers posed by the sustained winds. The Garden State Parkway floods and is shut down south of Exit 38 by 10:30 a.m. By 1 p.m., it’s closed from Exit 63 south by 1 p.m., and then from Exit 129 south by 4 p.m.

Around noon, reports surface that the ocean has broken over the dunes in Ortley Beach, crashing through Joey Harrison’s Surf Club. A CNN report showed the water coming into the club, and then-Toms River Police Chief Michael Mastronardy said there had been a couple of breaches in Ortley Beach. The high tide flooding the roads was the final push some residents need to evacuate to the mainland. Some, however, stay behind, convinced they will be able to ride it out.

As Sandy nears shore, the power outages begin to spread along the coast. Wind gusts of up to 90 mph are recorded. Eventually more than 8 million people in New Jersey, New York and inland are without power as trees and power lines come down. For some, the power outages last nearly two weeks.

About 8 p.m. the storm makes landfall just south of Atlantic City, according to the Mount Holly office of the National Weather Service. The storm surge is being felt not only on the barrier island, where the ocean has breached in Mantoloking, creating a 450-foot inlet, but in the back bays, where the surge from the breaches rushes into homes along the western side of Barnegat Bay. People who were not thought to be in danger found themselves scrambling to safety.

The breach in Mantoloking has included the destruction of several homes, and reports spread across Facebook that a house has hit the Mantoloking Bridge. It’s unclear in the dark whether the bridge has been damaged. In Camp Osborn, damaged natural gas lines lead to a house fire that spreads from home to home, where the buildings haven’t been washed away. People who have stayed on the island later recount their horror as the surge left them praying the attic would keep them alive amid the flood waters.

Sometime in the midst of the storm surge, Casino Pier is battled and the Jet Star roller coaster winds up sitting in the Atlantic, becoming the symbol of the damage inflicted on the Jersey Shore.

Oct. 30: Daylight brings the first glimpses of the widespread destruction wrought along the Jersey Shore and all along the coast. In North Jersey, NJ Transit trains are flooded in a railyard. The Holland Tunnel floods, closing that access to New York.

The remnants of Sandy have continued to move northwest across Pennsylvania; the massive storm continues to spread damage and precipitation across parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, western Pennsylvania and on into the Midwest, with gale-force winds and heavy rain. Some parts of the Appalachian Mountains receive more than a foot of snow.

Oct. 31: As Sandy finally sputters out, rescue and relief efforts are moving into full force on a local level, with neighbors helping neighbors, taking in people who have lost access to their homes or have lost them altogether.

As the water begins to recede, the magnitude of the damage becomes clear. In the end, more than 346,000 homes in New Jersey are damaged or destroyed, and 38 people died because of the storm.

While cleanup begins immediately for homeowners on the mainland, it is nearly two weeks before residents of the barrier island are allowed to even see their homes.

The state brings in National Guard troops to assist New Jersey State Police and local police with patroling the area and keeping potential looters at bay.

In Ortley Beach, the damage to the roads is so bad that residents there are the last ones who get to check out their properties in person. For those whose homes are still standing, it’s weeks before they can even begin the work rehab from the storm.

In areas away from the coast, the challenge is restoring power with thousands upon thousands of trees and wires down. Power restoration efforts are hampered further when a snowstorm slides through on Nov. 7 and drops as much as a foot of snow inland, and at least 4 inches at the coast. It takes nearly two weeks before the majority of power away from the shore is restored.

Schools across the state are closed for at least a week; at the shore, it's two weeks before schools reopen.

Halloween trick-or-treating is postponed a week because of the multitude of dangers from storm-weakened trees and downed wires. Some towns offer trunk-or-treat because of the extent of the issues.

Most of the early recovery work is neighbors helping neighbors. Volunteers from out of state flock to the area to help people in need, from cooking hot meals to tearing out sodden carpets and furnishings to simply offering a hug to residents tired and stressed from the process.

While FEMA is on the ground early, it is January 2013 before Congress can agree to pass a federal aid package to help with the recovery efforts.