Mantoloking residents can return home Friday

MANTOLOKING, N.J. (AP) — The last Jersey shore town to be closed to residents after Superstorm Sandy is letting them come home.

Mantoloking says it will allow residents to return to the battered barrier island town on Friday

The wealthy Ocean County community is the last of the storm-battered shore towns to let its residents move back home.

It sustained some of the worst damage in the Oct. 29 storm. Hundreds of homes were destroyed and the ocean cut a channel through to Barnegat Bay, cutting the town in two. That channel has since been filled in.

Despite the repopulation, officials don’t expect many residents to move in right away because so few homes are habitable yet.