On one 'charmed' street, Sandy left lives upended

First in an occasional series.

BRIGANTINE, N.J. - A lot happened on Cummings Place on the North End of Brigantine last week. There was a gas leak. Fire trucks came. People brought hot chili; workers pulled out wet insulation.

Mrs. Fox had a heart attack. Bob Solari worked to repair his ex-and-maybe-you-never-know-future-wife's house. Laurel Haeser despaired over her ruined kitchen. Cindy Tavarez salvaged the beanbag chair with her son's name on it. Haley Huff came home from swim practice.

If you didn't know better, you might think Cummings Place was closer to getting back to normal after being submerged by Sandy. It's not.

In fact, it's depopulating before its residents' eyes.

"We're totally stressed and scared to death," said Haeser, 66, a retired nurse who came back home with her husband, Bill, just briefly to wait for an adjuster.

In December, the Haesers will spend their first Christmas in 40 years away from Cummings, a block, like so many wrecked by Sandy in the North End of Brigantine and Ventnor Heights, where people lived in relative simplicity and contentment and now are reeling.

"We've lived a charmed life," Laurel Haeser said. "So when you hit the bump, you really go low."

These blocks are emptying out, some houses condemned by the city with a slap of a red sticker, others just unlivable while being rebuilt.

On Cummings, a horseshoe-shaped street wedged along the 11th fairway of the Links public golf course at the end of the island, the residents of all but a half-dozen of the 39 houses have to leave. They will be gone for months, if not longer.

"It's heartbreaking to see 80 percent of your block get flooded out," said Brian Hewitt, 39, who will live with his wife, Shelly, in her dad's camper in their driveway at No. 15.

Those spared - by their home's construction date and a city code that over the years raised the required elevation, or simply because, like former Police Chief Guy Wilkins, they paid the brick guy $80 to put another layer of concrete block on the foundation 25 years ago - are demoralized.

"We feel lucky," said Tony Molinari, a retired teacher and crew coach whose home at No. 11 was mostly dry. "We also feel guilty." Each morning, he collects all the nails in the street.

"It echoes," he said.

Last week, Jim Crane, a contractor working for the city, drove the back-end loader up the street again. In four previous runs, piles of belongings - a basketball hoop, remains of cabinets and rugs - had been picked up. He was back for insulation and sheetrock.

Asked how he felt gathering up the guts of lives, Crane, from his perch high up on the yellow truck and over the engine din, teared up. "It's been sad," he said. "You see the red stickers."

At that moment, traffic was backed up on Cummings Place because Shelly Hewitt's dad's camper was being delivered to the driveway beside her home, the first built on the block, in 1971, by her husband's parents.

Their home has flooded three times, as has her business, Shelly's Salon, in Ventnor Heights. She had to rip out the old roller-rink floor in the salon and gut the insides up to the second floor in the house, which is situated at just the right angle to see the sunset from the living room.

"The saddest part of knowing was knowing," she said.

She meant she knew before the storm that the equation - nor'easter plus full moon times Sandy - would devastate home and shop. Water rose 44 inches at home, 21 in the salon. Cast-iron pans were instantly coated with rust from salt water. Backyard vineyards went brown. She hopes FEMA will pay to raise the home to keep it dry, which also would give them a view of ocean and bay.

Some on Cummings Place say they won't come back. At No. 10, Susan Alling, 47, said a dispute with her ex-boyfriend has forced her and four children on their own. The home, and FEMA benefits, are his. She is seeking rental help but lost all her belongings.

Like so many, Alling came to the Atlantic City area on a whim when she was 18, took a job in a casino, and built a life. "I just want stability," she said.

Across the way, Bob Solari was putting in long hours rebuilding his ex-wife's house. She's back living with him a few blocks away, and - the retired A.C. firefighter, former city councilman, surfer, and builder said with a disarming honesty that probably won his wife over in the first place - he hopes it's for good.

"We're closer than we've ever been," he said.

A few doors down, Paul Pollastrelli borrowed a crowbar from the firefighters responding to the worrying gas leak at 88-year-old Helen Dicecco's house. He tried to wrench off handrails he had installed in the hallway of his disabled sister's home.

The next day, city firefighters would be called to the Brigantine Bridge to rescue a man who had jumped off, Chief Jim Holl said. On the island, despair itself seemed to be spreading like a gas leak.

Pollastrelli's sister, Donna, 55, who did not evacuate despite her wheelchair and teenage son, managed to get on President Obama's radar when he was on the island. She now gets a call from the White House now and then to see how she's doing. Answer: not too well.

"She can't move her legs that well," he said. "It's very hard, really hard."

Some people, like the Formans at No. 18, found ways to stay. A dealer at Golden Nugget whose home flooded, Ed Forman said his summer neighbor offered up his house. Some, like the Haesers, moved in with their kids.

The Huffs are waiting on a temporary house arranged by the local Presbyterian church. Laid off by the Casino Control Commission after state law cut the number of casino floor supervisors in May 2011, Bob Huff at least now has the cleanup to keep him busy. They expect to be gone for six months. "Where are you going to get a contractor?" he said. "Everybody needs one."

Next door, Mrs. Dicecco had returned from her son's house in Media after just one day away because of the gas leak. With a working washer-dryer, she had resumed doing the Huffs' laundry, said Sarah Huff, who works at Olive Garden.

At least there was that.

"The stress is mounting," Sarah Huff said. "It's overwhelming. One family after another."

at 609-576-1973 or arosenberg@phillynews.com.