Some of the worst damage to fisheries in the region occurred at the Belford Seafood Cooperative on the Raritan Bay shoreline in Middletown, where the pounding waves destroyed a 75-foot-long dock, gutted a popular restaurant, and ripped away all five garage doors and parts of the exterior of office and storage buildings. The co-op's manager, Joe Branin, estimates the damage at close to $1 million.

"We went three weeks before we were able to pack a fish," said Branin, whose business was still without electricity in mid-December. "We lost almost all our equipment. It was three weeks before anybody could do anything."