By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Seven months ago, Save Jerseyans, a fire destroyed eight blocks of the Seaside Park and Seaside Heights Boardwalk along with over 50 businesses. A 25-foot section had to be removed to serve as a fire break to save the rest of it only months after Hurricane Sandy wrecked 33 boardwalks along the coast. It was salt on the wound of our state’s storm-battered population.
Governor Chris Christie dropped by the iconic Seaside boardwalk this Friday and, while workers are still hammering, hauling and sawing like there’s no tomorrow, he projected that all of the states’ damaged walks would be repaired by Memorial Day Weekend… even if his “gentle powers of persuasion” need to be employed:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6EYOCpASTY
Transcript:
Governor Christie: You see that part of the boardwalk is already rebuilt. We’re making progress both here in Seaside Heights and in Seaside Park towards getting the rest of it rebuilt and I’m going to be on top of this every week to make sure that anyone whether you’re in the public sector or the private sector who are slowing us down from getting this project down will have to talk to me and feel one-on-one my powers of gentle persuasion, to make sure we get this thing done. We’re going to continue to work to make sure everyone knows that this is a great place to bring your family, a great place to enjoy a lot of different amusements and fun, and a great place to create memories for the rest of your life and certainly certainly a central part of the memories of my life and I know for many of the people out here. So we are going to shed these coats soon, I didn’t wear one even though I am a little cold up here. I didn’t wear one because you know I’m forcing the spring and summer baby, that’s it it’s not zero degrees so I don’t need a coat. And let’s make sure that we all work together to help each other as we have done over the last 18 months to recover from what we’ve sustained and make sure we talk to everyone we can to let them know that it’s time to come to the Jersey Shore this summer. So thank you all for being here, I appreciate it very much.