Gunnell Oval: After Hurricane Sandy

This morning I took trip to the Gunnell Oval in Kearny, NJ. Home to soccer fields, baseball diamonds, walking trails and the freshwater Kearny Marsh. This is the park in which Steve, my father and I (and my aunt and uncle at one point) recently spent many hours rescuing trapped fish and relocating them to the marsh. (I'm just waiting on pictures from this experience to be sent to me, and then I'll post about it. It was quite an adventure...) 

Even though in total we relocated about 80 carp, local teenagers we met about 100, a nice lifelong Kearny resident whom I met today relocated approximately 80-90 and the Kearny High School Fishing Club relocated 76, I counted at least 40 dead fish along the road, trapped in puddle-ponds, and squished in the street. It was a pretty gruesome sight, and I'm definitely feeling guilty about not being able to save more. I counted 3 surviving fish in the puddle-pond created by a massive willow tree which was ripped out of the ground during the hurricane. Once the rest of the water evaporates, I'm sure we are going to find a really disturbing amount of additional fish who didn't make it.


In the back of the park there's a little bench and then there were immediate walking trails- you could walk all around the marsh, with great views of the water, fish, all sorts of birds (I've heard that there are owls, woodpeckers, hawks and even bald eagles back there). The storm literally moved the earth and pushed what I'm guessing were floating islands against the shore, creating a new shoreline and completely destroying the walking paths. Steve and I had been contemplating having engagement photos taken back there... but now those very paths don't even exist anymore.

I know there are a lot of people really hurting from the storm- we still have so many without power, let alone without homes. People have lost everything. If you are one of the lucky ones, I encourage you to take a walk to your local park and see if there's anything you can do to help put it back together again- picking up trash, setting a tipped trash can upright, seeing if your community's Parks and Recreation department needs volunteers for any projects. 

During my walk, many people drove through, walked/ran through and some were just parked in their cars, drinking coffee and reading the paper. The Gunnell Oval is a happy place for many residents, a place of solitude and peace. I look forward to spending more time there and doing what I can to clean up and preserve such a beautiful park.

I'll let the photos speak for themselves... 

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
(Margaret Mead, anthropologist)