School Shootings Put a New Perspective on Losses From the Hurricane Ortley Beach, N.J., was perhaps the town hardest-hit by Hurricane Sandy, with virtually all 2,400 homes damaged and about 10 percent of them destroyed. But the devastation wrought by the storm was tempered by the loss of life at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. "It put a whole different spin on life in general and on what we're going through," said one resident.