Houses and furniture can be replaced, but nothing can bring back the precious memories captured in family photos, which is why one survivor of Hurricane Sandy is determined to reunite families with their lost mementos.
The New York Daily News is reporting that Jeannette Van Houten, 42, of Union Beach, New Jersey, has made it her mission to salvage photos found among the debris of Hurricane Sandy and get them back into the hands of their owners.
Photo found of mother holding newborn for first time
Her efforts began on Oct. 30, the day after Sandy struck when she found photos lying on the ground that belonged to her niece and nephew who lived nearby.
“I thought, ‘Oh, God. This is real.’ This means they’ve lost their home, also,” she told the Daily News.
Her own home was damaged by more than six feet of salt water, but many of her neighbors lost everything in the storm that caused tens of billions of dollars worth of damage along the Mid-Atlantic coast on Oct. 29. As Van Houten looked around on the morning after that terrible storm, she saw scores of photographs and personal mementos belonging to her neighbors.
“Sandy destroyed metal and wood and steel and concrete,” Jeannette Van Houten told the Daily News. “But we’re finding these pieces of paper, these photos, and their images are still beautiful.”
A family’s group shot
She began to collect the photos, cleaned them, scanned them, then posted them on Facebook with the hopes of reuniting families with their lost treasures. News of the site spread by word-of-mouth and Union Beach residents began to browse Van Houten’s collection, which totals more than 3,000 photos, looking for something that belongs to them.
Sharon McMahon, 25, whose Union Beach home was completely washed away during the storm, found many of her family photos through Van Houten’s Facebook page.
“I kind of thought it was a lost cause, but then someone tagged my fiancé and me in a picture and I started to go through them. There were tons,” McMahon told the Daily News. “My baby pictures. Ones we didn’t have digital copies of.”
There were also photos of her one-year-old son.
Van Houten, who considers herself lucky that her home is still standing, is only too happy to help her neighbors recover these priceless memories.“You can replace a home. You can replace possessions within the home,” she said. “But you’re never going to get the first photo of your baby being held back. It’s my mission to save as many of these memories as I possibly can. Because it’s really all we have in Union Beach.”
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