Robert Post talks to the Associated Press on May 31 about his home, in Mantoloking, N.J., which was flooded during Superstorm Sandy last year. Post has a pacemaker that needs to be checked once a month by phone, but the phone company refuses to restore the area’s landlines after they were damaged by the storm.

MANTOLOKING, N.J. – Robert Post misses his phone line.

Post, 85, has a pacemaker that needs to be checked once a month by phone. But the copper wiring that once connected his home to the rest of the world is gone, and the phone company refuses to restore it.

Last October, Superstorm Sandy pushed the sea over Post’s neighborhood in Mantoloking, N.J., leaving hundreds of homes wrecked and one floating in the bay. The homes on this sandy spit of land along the New Jersey shore are being rebuilt, but Verizon doesn’t want to replace washed-away lines and waterlogged underground cables. Phone lines are outdated, the company says.

I would love to get rid of our landline but my husband wants to keep it. Do you still have phone line?

---

---