The Drowning of Money Island

August 1, 2019

Ravaged by storms and neglected by government officials who are more intent instead on focusing taxpayer dollars on the more lucrative Jersey Shore communities, the community of Bayshore is in crisis. Journalist Lewis looks at the devastating consequences of climate change on the towns comprising the Bayshore area at the southern end of New Jersey, bordered by the Delaware Bay. As a native of this area, Lewis is acquainted with the ethos of its residents: resilient, rural, and hardworking. Previous storms had interrupted life for community members, but Superstorm Sandy drastically altered the region's landscape. This narrative is told primarily through the voices of two community members determined to preserve their property, even under mounting pressure to sell out to the Blue Acres Superstorm Sandy Program, an initiative to remove people from chronically flood-prone areas. The well-rounded narrative takes into account all the factors influencing their lives, from politics to environmental factors and the bonds people have with their land. VERDICT A cautionary tale to add to the corpus of environmental nonfiction, this book humanizes the experience in ways that others have not.--Diana Hartle, Univ. of Georgia Science Lib., Athens

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 12, 2019
Lewis, a journalist and former resident of South Jersey’s Bayshore region, chronicles locals’ struggles to recover homes and livelihoods following Hurricane Sandy and in the face of climate change. When Sandy hit the New Jersey coast, Lewis, then living in California, jumped on a plane to “cover the recovery,” arriving on the devastated Money Island just days after Sandy’s landfall. Discovering further environmental threats apart from Sandy, including rising sea and sinking land levels, Lewis pinpoints what he calls the Bayshore’s primary existential conundrum—“would the place crawl back from the brink of extinction on the backs of the ... or would its revival come from conservationists?” He also questions the unequal levels of financial aid, favoring wealthier Jersey Shore regions, provided after the storm. Lewis’s narrative transitions—among childhood memories, 2012–2013 relief efforts, and present-day stories—can be choppy and even confusing. Still, he exhibits a dogged determination to tell the complete story, interviewing politicians, visiting local board meetings, and sharing often heartbreaking stories of residents who remain despite losing “their American dream.” Lewis’s thoughtful, probing study is most adept at distilling the complexities of post-Sandy recovery, posing the question: “Why one group of people and the land they lived upon not as important as another?”

September 1, 2019
Superstorm Sandy carved a path of destruction in the mid-Atlantic U.S. in October 2012. A large swath of Sandy's devastation ran through New Jersey, with coastal regions getting especially hard hit. Rural Cumberland County, in the southern part of the state, had long experienced erosion from past hurricanes and nor'easters, and the damage left in Sandy's wake left residents with ever more dwindling options. In particular, Sandy made conditions drastically worse in Money Island, a sparsely populated Cumberland community that had already faced erosion and other issues related to climate change for years. After the superstorm, government bureaucracy and a general favoring of wealthier areas of the state left Money Island residents fuming and destitute. New Jersey coast native Lewis provides valuable perspective, utilizing his own experiences growing up in the area to relate to how the current residents feel. While by no means a one-sided polemic on doomsday scenarios, this excellent read does serve as a clarion call for those who question climate change.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)