The Jersey shore 12 weeks after Sandy

The wreckage of what appears to have been a waterfront restaurant.

Union Beach was the hardest hit of the three communities I visited.

Only a statue, left, and a mailbox, right, remain after a home was demolished.

Here are photos from a visit to Keansburg, Sea Bright and Union Beach on Saturday.

Even if the Superstorm Sandy recovery effort succeeds in returning the shore to something near normal by Memorial Day, should Governor Christie get the credit?

After all, the billions in aid come from the federal government, and Cristie is famous for rejecting other U.S. fund he doesn't like, such as mass transit funding for new rail tunnels to Manhattan.

In Sea Bright, none of the stores in the small business district appear to be open.

Sea Bright's business district, above and below.

On Union Beach, a cluster of 27 small American flags stuck in the sand serves as a memorial to the first-graders and adults murdered at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. 

Small flags are a memorial to those who were slaughtered in Newtown, Conn.

Absent in The Record's coverage of Superstorm Sandy were sweeping views of the destruction at the shore that readers saw on TV news.

Did Publisher Stephen A. Borg opt to make a mortgage payment on his Tenafly McMansion rather than hire a helicopter for one his staff photographers?

And while I'm talking about Sandy, why is the Woodland Park daily sticking with Editor Liz Houlton's idiotic coinage of lower-case superstorm and upper-case Sandy (A-1 today), when Consumer Reports and most other media use Superstorm Sandy? 

Union Beach neighborhood, above and below.

The view of Sandy Hook National Recreation Area, foreground, Coney Island and Manhattan from Mount Mitchell Scenic Overlook County Park, Monmouth County. A sign says the overlook is the highest natural point on the Eastern Seaboard between southern Maine and the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Sandy Hook is closed.