A lonely kind of place.

That's how Ginnie Kenney described Seaside Heights in the months following Hurricane Sandy. 

She said she and her neighbors were expecting visitors to hopefully return to the resort town in June, but she was more optimistic. With the borough working hard at restoration following the storm's devastation, Kenney said she believed St. Patrick's Day was a more likely possibility. 

On Saturday, tens of thousands of visitors lined the green-stripped Boulevard in Seaside Heights for the borough's annual St. Patrick's Day parade, the first time its welcomed the public back in full since the storm. 

Though the boardwalk is just pilings, the former boards being washed away, and though many homes and businesses are still gutted, the optimism and hope for recovery is being felt by most.

"Here we are," Kenney said. "It's like a dream's been realized."