Asbury Park Press

APP.COM $1.00

TUESDAY 12.09.14

NOREASTER
JERSEY SHORE
BRACES FOR
FLOODING,
STRONG WINDS

Local officials get set to deal with weather

threats up to and including possible snow.
STORY, PAGE A8

WALKING AWAY
FROM THE HOUSE
Shore towns struggle to deal with homes
abandoned by owners after superstorm Sandy
TOM SPADER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

A Sunday night fire on Ocean Avenue in Sea Bright damaged

apartments and a ground-floor business.

Sea Bright
fire a blow
to borough
10 residents displaced,
businesses damaged
STEPH SOLIS @STEPHMSOLIS

PETER ACKERMAN /STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Empty property on Little Egg Harbor Boulevard in the Tuckerton Beach section of Tuckerton.

JEAN MIKLE @JEANMIKLE

Scan the code to

rive down any bayfront street in Highlands and the

watch a video of

houses are visible, spotted in between the rebuilt

abandoned homes

homes that soar high on pilings and the vacant lots

where homes once stood. Carolyn Broullon and her part-

in our area at APP.com.

SOME RELIEF

ner, Donica Basinger, completed repairs on their SandyState lawmakers consider barring foreclosures on Sandy homes. Page A3

See HOMES, Page A4

SEA BRIGHT Clyde Worthen lost nearly everything after superstorm Sandy hit. He had nowhere to
go, until he saw an ad for an open apartment on Ocean
Avenue.
The owner, Frank Ngo, took him in. Like many
Shore residents, Worthen spent the next two years rebuilding his life.
But Monday morning he sat in Ngos red pickup
truck in front of his apartment in his black-and-blue
pajamas and sullied socks.
Worthens apartment went up in flames Sunday
night. Once again, he had lost it all. In all, at least 10
residents were displaced from a Sunday evening fire
that engulfed the three-story building where Worthen
lived on the 1000 block of Ocean Avenue.
After Sandy, that guy took me in, and now look at
what happened here, Worthen, 48, said, wiping away
tears with the sleeve of his pajama shirt.
Sea Bright Fire Rescue responded to a call about

See FIRE, Page A4

APP CONVERSATION ON RACE

Can you still follow the leader when hes black?

APP Executive
Editor Hollis Towns
has an attribute
you spot right
away: Hes black.

JAMES FLACHSENHAAR
JFLACHSE@GANNETT.COM
My boss Hollis Towns, editor of the
Asbury Park Press is reasonable
enough, suffering only brief periods of
stubbornness. Thankfully, these last no
longer than four or five months, separated by 30-minute lunches.
Hes easygoing, too, but demanding
frequently asking end-of-shift reporters
to produce stories that just occurred to him. We need
this in the paper tomorrow! hell exclaim with full Daily Planet bravado offering a challenge few journal-

ists will sidestep.

And, like many managers who have to move mountains as well as molehills, hes consistent but contradictory. Mature yet unrestrained. Sincere but situationally
wily.
Hollis has another attribute you spot right away:
Hes black. Black as in red-hills-of-Georgia, Bible-Belted, picked-peaches-as-a-teenager black. Me? Im white,
the German-Irish-Italian variety, raised on the leafy
streets of 1960s Cliffside Park where for diversity we
settled for the Armenian family down the block.
As far as the staff is concerned and despite our
See RACE, Page A8

POLL: MOST THINK NYC COP SHOULD HAVE BEEN CHARGED PAGE 1B
ADVICE
CLASSIFIED
COMICS
LOCAL
LOTTERIES
OBITUARIES
OPINION
SPORTS
TECH TUESDAY
WEATHER

TRASH TO TREASURE
Buying a new smartphone means you probably have
an old one. Turn it into cash instead of a doorstop.
TECH TUESDAY, PAGE A6

VOLUME 135, NUMBER 294

SINCE 1879

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