Surviving the Storm
Katie Gillis, Assistant Curator
Danni Logue, Curator of Conservation Education/Volunteer Manager
Jenkinson’s Aquarium

Jenkinson’s Aquarium is located on the boardwalk in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey. The location is perfect for families with children who want to enjoy the ocean. An aquarium next to the ocean has its challenges and we faced one of the largest on October 29, 2013. Historical low pressure, storm surges enhanced by a full moon, and waves cresting several feet above normal tides combined to form “Superstorm Sandy.”

While going through our accreditation process, we reviewed and revamped our storm protocols. Hurricane Irene in August 2011 gave us a practice run for these protocols although we never lost power or were flooded at that time. On Friday, October 26, 2013 our director, curator, aquarists, and senior animal care staff had a pre-storm meeting. We went over the latest weather predictions, what worked and/or didn't for Irene, who was able to stay (ride out team), and what we could do to prepare over the coming days. A “ride out team” is scheduled when there is a prediction of bad flooding, power outages, and/or a Nor’easter. From Friday till Sunday, all emergency equipment was tested and we purchased as many D batteries and gallons of gasoline as we could. All the forecasts were saying "This will be worse than anything we have ever seen before." How do you prepare for "something worse than we have ever seen?" We put our name on a list for a generator that was powerful enough to run the entire building, made arrangements for our contractors to be on site as soon as they could after the storm, contacted the local police department to provide the names of those staying at the aquarium, and set up our command center in the aquarium. We were fortunate that no animals needed placement at the time of the storm.

Staff members Cindy Claus, Carlo DiMicco, Katie Gillis, Chris Mack, Christy Matthews, Evan Mooney,
Linelle Smith, and Reagan Quarg were “Team Sandy”. The team arrived at the aquarium by 2:00pm on Sunday October 28. The town of Point Pleasant Beach was shutting down as of 4:00pm that day, which meant no one could come in and everyone had to be out. We watched weather and news reports on the computers and did last minute prepping. We kept the animals on their regularly scheduled feeding times. During hurricane Irene, we noticed the animals became a little more vigilant and quirky as the storm approached; that was strangely not the case during this storm.

Around 4:00pm on Monday, a couple of us went out into the parking lot. The wind was picking up. The telephone poles around the perimeter of the parking lot were swaying significantly. You could see shingles and siding flying off houses in the neighborhood. We all tried to relax for awhile, knowing that the power could go out at any minute. Around 6:15pm, it did. Everyone went to work. We started the generators working with flashlights and following the paths lit with glow sticks. The smaller tanks were operated by battery powered aerators. About half an hour later, we noticed about 12 inches of water inside the employee entrance door located by our basement.

The construction of the aquarium in 1991 was well planned. Communication between the owners and designers was key and most likely why our building is still standing. The concrete building was designed so any major storm surge would breach the basement level retaining wall, then flow under the building without damage to the structure. At 7:45pm that is exactly what happened. There was a very loud bang that caused us to look down towards the employee entrance door. The fire alarms started going off. The water that had been holding steady was now rising at a quick pace. We knew the ocean had broken through our basement.

We went back upstairs, continued to monitor the generators, and tried to get some rest. Then we heard voices. Two police officers dressed like the Gorton's Fisherman had entered the aquarium, following our path of glow sticks, to ask if we wanted to be rescued. We declined, and they said we were probably more comfortable in the aquarium than anyone else in town.

At 7:30am we went out and surveyed the damage before the next high tide was due. We discovered that not only did the ocean break through the wall but it also pushed most of our holding tanks into the parking lot and the neighborhood. It also deposited four feet of sand throughout the entire basement. That afternoon our construction company arrived and began to help with clean up. Other staff members were finally allowed to enter town on Wednesday. We were running out of gas and D batteries. We put a request on Facebook and before you knew it, people from all over our area arrived with both! The care and concern from friends and strangers alike was heartwarming. Even our HVAC guy and electrician had both been in to help us with whatever we needed; including hot coffee! At midnight on Thursday, a large, green diesel generator arrived and our electrician wired it to our building. That evening we had lights and all tanks were running on full life support for the first time since Monday.

We had no loss of life (animal or staff) due to the storm. The public viewing area of the aquarium was not damaged. Unfortunately due to the damage to the rest of the boardwalk, we were not able to reopen the aquarium to the public until February 1, 2013. Our emergency protocol, contingency plans, preparation, meetings, communications, the structure of our building, along with a little bit of luck, paid off.

Finally, thank you to everyone in our AZA family for their kind words and generous offers of help. Without power it was difficult to get word out and respond to all the support that has been given. Many of your messages even brought tears to our eyes. If you ever have to go through something like this, which we hope you don’t, it’s nice to know you all are there if we need you. Thank you.