Or was. Superstorm Sandy did not pause for nostalgia as she barreled up the New Jersey coast on October 29. She dumped Seaside Heights' Star Jet roller coaster into the ocean and shattered the 17-block-long boardwalk. In other coastal communities, she blasted boardwalk shards onto roads and yards or buried them under sand and sea.

After a disaster like Sandy, the cry to rebuild goes up quickly. "As a kid who was born and raised in this state and who spent a lot of time over my life­—both my childhood and my adult life—at the Jersey Shore," Governor Chris Christie told reporters October 31, "no question in my mind we'll rebuild it."

But the prospect of rising sea levels