Sandy was the storm we feared, and we knew it would come one day. For years, scientists have warned of increased storm activity: bigger, more frequent hurricanes - a new cycle of fiercer weather.
Planners and others have warned of the increased vulnerability of development along the coast: more people, closer to the water, aggravated by a loss of the wave- and flood water-tempering natural features of dunes, beaches and tidal wetlands.
There is no small irony in the fact that modern weather tracking systems and models gave decision-makers highly accurate information to predict the storm's track and landfall.
But the equally predictable scope and scale of the damage resulting from poor coastal development practices, anticipated for years, was ignored. We could see the storm coming, but only in the short term.
The stage was set to put residents and responders in harm's way years before Sandy arrived. Development of the barrier islands caused the loss of our natural defense system, which inevitably placed people at risk.
We have allowed the filling and destruction of more than half of the state's tidal wetlands and much of the natural beach and dune systems. Wetlands act as large sponges for flood waters, and dunes serve as natural wave barriers.
Lax development controls continue to allow beachfront houses and development within the dune systems, weakening their integrity. Coastal wetlands are beginning to "drown" under rising sea levels because their natural landward "retreat" zones are blocked by development and roads.
Rebuilding of the state's beaches (itself only a short-term mitigation approach) has slowed over fights with landowners trying to limit dune reconstruction and town officials opposing required public beach access.
Gov. Christie has pledged to rebuild the Shore, but he acknowledges that it will look different than it did before Sandy hit. As the communities along the Shore are rebuilt, there is an opportunity to reduce the risk they will face from inevitable future storms, to make them more resilient, to restore some of the lost natural environment of the coast.
This will require that we take some lessons from the vulnerabilities that were exposed by Sandy, resist the understandable urge to recreate everything as it was, and don't fall back on old, discredited strategies.
There will undoubtedly be calls to "armor" the coast with sea walls. Instead, we should restore the lost natural elements of the Shore.
We should take the opportunity to recreate huge dune fields on the scale that originally existed, not the faint reflections created currently as part of beach nourishment projects.
We should restore the 50 percent of tidal wetlands we've lost, to the extent we can, as close to historic locations as possible.
We know how to rebuild salt marshes effectively, as a hedge against bay flooding and sea level rise. This would not only mitigate storm impacts, but contribute to restoring our estuaries and the commercial and recreational fisheries that depend on them - a boost to a sustainable coastal economy.
We will face some of the hardest decisions about relocating homes and businesses out of harm's way. There is a new geography to the coast now, and Sandy clearly showed us the most vulnerable spots. Additional insights can be gained by looking at where there has been repetitive damage in the past. It's a good indicator of where reconstruction might be most at risk.
Placing people and property back into harm's way is not common sense, the self-proclaimed hallmark of the governor's policy making. Admittedly, it is an exceedingly difficult political question to answer.
We know more storms are in our future, we know the coast is vulnerable and that lives are at risk with each event. Yet, the Shore is ingrained in our culture. Everyone has a tie to it, a memory, a special place.
We must be guided by the idea of protecting our communities from future harm. Those areas that have become unacceptably hazardous should not be reoccupied. How we determine that should be a public discussion, and short-term decisions that might constrain that debate must be avoided.
The reality is that much of the beachfront and barrier island communities will be rebuilt. The risks posed by living at the Shore will be accepted - perhaps unconsciously, perhaps defiantly - even in the face of the destruction brought by Sandy, and contrary to common sense. As long as we live along the coast, we will not be free from the perils of storms like Sandy.
There are no strategies that will keep us completely risk free. However, the opportunity to shape a new coastal landscape in the rebuilding to come provides an opportunity to reduce that risk, and to restore a better balance in our cohabitation of the coast with natural, and predictably recurring, dramatic weather events.