On Wednesday, Oct. 24 from noon to 1 p.m., the New Jersey State Library will present a free author talk
Great Storms of the Jersey Shore,
featuring authors Margaret Buchholz and Scott Mazzella.
Eyewitness accounts from those who have known the power of these great storms draw us in to a time and place where survival is uncertain. Until Superstorm Sandy, few people living at the shore today have experienced extreme storms, but for those who have, it was a defining moment in their lives.
The information for the program is from two books. Great Storms of the Jersey Shore by Buchholz is a dramatic history of the major coastal storms that have hit the Jersey shore from the 1700s through the 1990s.
Mozzella’s book, Surviving Sandy, is an in-depth study of that storm’s strike on Long Beach Island and highlights a selection of photographs, contemporary news reports and interviews with people who experienced major Jersey shore storms and nor’easters.
The presentation offers an opportunity to appreciate the horror and beauty of nature at its most powerful.
Buchholz was born in Manhattan and at a young age was brought to the Jersey shore just in time to be evacuated by the Coast Guard during a nor’easter. After college, she purchased The Beachcomber, a Jersey shore weekly newspaper, and published it seasonally for 35 years. She is an award-winning writer and has written, co-written, contributed to or edited six books.
Mazzella has a bachelor of arts degree in journalism from Rutgers University and is currently a history teacher at an Old Bridge Middle School. He is a former print and television reporter, and passionate weather buff with a long family history on Long Beach Island. His family’s home in Holgate was damaged in the 1962 nor’easter and again in Sandy. He has written one book, Surviving Sandy: Long Beach Island and the Greatest Storm of the Jersey Shore and is currently working on an updated version of Great Storms of the Jersey Shore with an expected release in next summer.
The event is open to the public, and it will be held in the level two reading room at the library, 185 West State Street, Trenton. Register to Cindy Warrick at cwarrick@njstatelib.org or (609) 278-2640, ext. 172.
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