The sea does not forgive. It takes what it wants and leaves behind what it is done with.
The evidence is there on the sodden streets and carved-away beaches of the Jersey Shore this morning, a silent testament to the passing of Hurricane Erin.
The storm is moving away, a swirl of anger hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic. But its work is done. The high surf advisory remains. The rip currents still churn, invisible and deadly, beneath a deceptively sunny and clear sky.
The ocean is not safe, a fact written in the erosion and the floodwaters that refuse to recede.
In Ocean City, the beach is wounded. The dunes are gone, sheared away into small, crumbling cliffs. The waves now lap at the wooden pilings of the Music Pier, a place built for amusement now standing as a bulwark against the tide.
Hours before high tide, the water’s edge was already at the end of the beach, a preview of the next fight against the moon’s pull. Ankle-deep water still fills many roads, a lingering ghost of the previous night’s assault.
Down the coast in Sea Isle City, the morning light shines on flooded streets. Landis Avenue, the town’s main artery, is a shallow river.
The side streets that lead to the water are impassable. At the island’s southern tip, the Townsends Inlet bridge is closed, severed by the flood. The community is cut off from itself, divided by water that has no business on the land.
Margate faced its own private rescue. Firefighters navigated the submerged avenues of the back bay, their truck a boat on the newly made streets.
Sixteen people were stranded, customers at two restaurants who found themselves suddenly isolated by the rising water. They filed into the high vehicle for a ride home, a quiet procession through a neighborhood that was no longer what it was hours before. Ventnor Avenue, near the pharmacy and the fire station itself, was a mirror reflecting the sky.
There was a strange sight in the Wildwoods.
A man in a kayak, paddling calmly through a parking lot. He moved past a shopping center, his vessel where cars should be, a surreal image of adaptation in the face of the absurd.
By morning, the waves were still testing the sea wall in North Wildwood, slapping at its top, a persistent challenge to the man-made barrier. Water pooled on the drive, a temporary victory for the ocean.
Governor Phil Murphy had called a state of emergency for this, for the flooding and the erosion.
The declaration was a recognition of force majeure, an acknowledgment that nature had presented a bill and it was now due.
Coastal and flash flooding, dangerous surf warnings and advisories, and high winds were expected for several counties across New Jersey. Hurricane Erin lived up to expectations.
Parts of the state experienced sustained winds of up to 50 mph, large breaking waves along the Shore as high as 17 feet, and the inundation of one to three feet of water in flood-prone areas.
The sun is out now. It is a beautiful day. But the damage is not undone.
The water remains, and the beaches are smaller. The ocean retreated, but it left its mark, a reminder of what is to come again.