MIDDLETOWN, N.J. (AP) — Januar While Superstorm Sandy did highly visible damage to homes, boardwalks and roads, it also walloped the Northeastern fishing industry, whose workers are hoping for a small piece of any future disaster assistance that Congress might approve.
The storm did millions of dollars’ worth of damage to docks, fish processing plants and restaurants. But it also caused millions more in lost wages to boat employees who couldn’t work for two to three weeks, to truck drivers who had nothing to transport, and to other assorted industries that service commercial fishing.
The $9.7 billion measure to fund the National Flood Insurance program, passed by Congress on Friday, did not include anything for the fishing industry; a bill the Senate passed in December would have allocated $150 million for that purpose.
Some of the worst damage to fisheries in the region occurred at the Belford Seafood Cooperative on the Raritan Bay shoreline in Middletown, where the pounding waves destroyed a 75-foot-long dock, gutted a popular restaurant, and ripped away all five garage doors and parts of the exterior of office and storage buildings. The co-op’s manager, Joe Branin, estimates the damage at close to $1 million.
‘‘We went three weeks before we were able to pack a fish,’’ said Branin, whose business was still without electricity in mid-December. ‘‘We lost almost all our equipment. It was three weeks before anybody could do anything.’’
The restaurant, where diners could eat scallops and fillets literally right off the boat, had provided $5,000 to $8,000 a week in revenue that is now gone.
Read the full story from the AP at the Boston Globe