'We Rebuilt By Hand:' The Sandy Comeback Of A Jersey Shore Tackle Shop

SEASIDE HEIGHTS, NJ ? In the years after Superstorm Sandy, the bumper stickers were everywhere: Jersey Strong. Restore the Shore.

Meet two Jersey Shore small-business owners who really are "Jersey Strong," as Tommy Cortese and Rick Hibell endured the entire loss of their business, flooding, a fire, threats of lawsuits, no insurance payouts, plus very limited government assistance in the wake of Sandy, which hit New Jersey ten years ago this week.

And yet somehow, the Dock Outfitters is back in business again in Seaside Heights, as strong, if not stronger than it was a decade ago.

Located right on Barnegat Bay, the bait 'n tackle shop is about as classic Jersey Shore as it gets, supplying Jet Ski and boat rentals, plus fishing gear and daily fishing trips to thousands of summertime patrons for decades. They also have a waterside cafe.

Cortese, now 66, worked at his father's business his whole life. Hibell, 46, on the other hand, came down to Seaside during the summer, to his parents' beach bungalow (which was also destroyed in Sandy). When Hibell was 10 years old, he started working on the docks while Cortese managed the rentals. Growing up 20 years apart, the two men formed a friendship that became like father-son or older brother-younger brother. Cortese was the best man at Hibell's wedding.

In 1999, Cortese and Hibell decided to purchase the business together and become partners. Business was good and they expanded, opening a second Jet Ski rental shop in nearby Ortley Beach. Plans were underway for a third shop.

And then Sandy made landfall in New Jersey on Oct. 29, 2012.

"We were actually at Tommy's daughter's wedding the night before, in Point Pleasant Beach," recalled Hibell. "A wedding of all things. It had already started really storming and they closed the place early and made us all go home."

The two men had prepared, of course, as all Jersey Shore locals did: They chained the 25 boats they owned to the wrought-iron fence. They moved as much equipment as they could off island. They never thought Barnegat Bay would come inside the shop, or carry off the 40 Jet Skis they secured in the parking lot.

When they returned two days after the storm cleared, nothing could prepare them for the devastation they witnessed.

"First of all, you could only get to Seaside Heights by boat. They had closed down the Rt. 37 bridge (the only way on or off the island)," said Hibell. "So we showed up there by boat, and found a foot and a half of water inside the building. My parents' beach house a few blocks away was completely flooded, five feet of water inside. All our Jet Skis, I'd say 30 to 40, had been washed away. They were scattered all over the bay, all over Seaside Heights and a few got washed nearly as far down as Island Beach State Park."

Hibell actually requested we not tell his story, because "there were homeowners, year-long residents on Seaside, who had five feet of water in their living rooms. Those were the people who really lost everything. What we suffered was minor compared to some people in that storm."

The seawater had short-circuited the electricity to the bait 'n tackle shop and caused a fire to the outside of the building. Fortunately, the flames did not spread inside. Hibell lives year-round in the Leonardo section of Middletown and his waterfront home on Raritan Bay was flooded, too. On top of that, he was the Middletown Fire Department Chief at the time.

"That's really the only thing that kept me going: We had to respond to so many calls to help others and then in the meantime take the boat back down to Seaside and retrieve all the wave runners," he said. "We had just watched $100,000 worth of product just float away."

Then State Police shut down all boat traffic in and out of Seaside. Because so many homes had been abandoned and were inaccessible, police were worried about looters, explained Hibell. Police told the two men they could not return by boat for the next several weeks.

The land on which the Dock Outfitters sits is actually owned by the town of Seaside Heights; Cortese and Hibell rent the property from the town on a 20-year lease. Because of that unique arrangement, they had business insurance, but did not have flood insurance.

"Our insurance company was terrible; they gave us nothing, I mean nothing," said Hibell. "And people don't realize it, but government assistance after Sandy was pretty small compared to the government help after COVID. I don't even think we applied for any grants."

"It was all us," recalled Cortese. "We had lost everything. We had to use our own money. We had to rebuild the entire shop, find and rebuild every damaged boat by hand, on our own."

The stress finally got to Hibell: His entire business, and his family's vacation home, which had been in the family for generations, were both destroyed. His own home was flooded and he and his wife had three small children at the time. A few weeks after Sandy, he ended up hospitalized for severe gastrointestinal inflammation.

"I've really never seen anything like that storm," he still marveled to this day. "We prepared, but we just didn't think it would be as bad as it was."

Even as the next summer began, business on Seaside Heights was still pretty devastated.

"A lot of people still weren't coming down to the Jersey Shore," recalled Cortese. "It wasn't like in COVID when people had tons of free money to burn and were renting Jet Skis multiple times a week like last summer."

But the landlord who owned the lot on which their second shop was located still wanted his rent payments. He threatened to sue them if they did not pay. Fearing a legal battle, Hibell and Cortese decided to just pay him. But they didn't have enough wave runners to rent at the shop. The summer after the storm, they employed a teenage girl to just sit there and answer the phones, directing the few customers who did show up back to their original location.

In the end, Hibell decided to let Cortese take over sole ownership of the Dock Outfitters. In the wake of Sandy, he decided it was a good time to pivot and focus on expanding his marine construction business.

At the time, he had no idea what it would become: EZ Docks Marine Construction, based in Belford, is the sole licensed distributor for EZ Dock floating docks in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland

Plus, they just recently secured the distributor rights in Florida. Hibell opened his two newest shops, in West Palm Beach and Fort Myers, just before Hurricane Ian hit there last month. Demand has been high for dock rebuilding in Florida. Today, he employs more than 40 employees and sells to 20 dealers up and down the East Coast.

"I went from losing my entire business to today running a thriving business," said Hibell.

What did it take?

"Hard work. That's really all I can say. We really had no help and we had to do it on our own," he said.