LONG BEACH TOWNSHIP, N.J. (CBSNewYork) – In Holgate, the hardest hit part of Long Beach Island, a woman is racing against time to reopen a motel and save her family’s business.
“What you’re standing on used to be a 12 foot clearance and now it’s probably six and a half foot,” Judy Lobrutto told WCBS 880’s Peter Haskell as they stood in the basement of the Jolly Roger Motel.
The space is filled with sand and debris from superstorm Sandy.
“We’re up at 5 and we are probably asleep by 8:30 at night, but there’s not much stopping in between,” she said.
The effort is a tribute to her parents. They owned this place for 42 years.
“I want to continue their dream. I want to live up to their dream,” she said. “This is my family’s business. This was their passion. This was their love. I have got to honor what they worked so hard [for] and I benefited from.”
With her mother sick and her father having died, Lobrutto quit her corporate job in Atlanta to run the business.
Now it’s hers and it was a mess.
Sand piled up underthe Jolly Roger Motel in the Holgate section of Long Beach Island (credit: Peter Haskell / WCBS 880)
“We lost our water main. We lost our gas lines. We lost all our duct work. We lost all of our electrical,” she said.
She is, however, focused.
“We want people to come to Long Beach Island. We want them to come to Holgate, specifically,” she said.
Remarkably, the building sustained no water damage.
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