How One Storm Ended Long Beach Island's Golden Age

For six weeks in 1962, a U.S. Navy destroyer sat stranded on the beach at the south end of Long Beach Island — left there by the Ash Wednesday Storm, the nor’easter that cut the island into five pieces and ended its golden age. This is the full rise and fall of a New Jersey sandbar that was bought for $243, wired to Philadelphia by a private railroad, crowned with grand Victorian hotels, and made famous by the 1916 shark attacks that helped inspire Jaws. Over five relentless high tides, one stalled storm swept the last of that genteel world away, drowned seven people, and left a warship high and dry as the receipt. Watch to the end to find out why the island came back richer than ever — and why it was never truly safe.