A man walked past a line of storm-wrecked beach cottages in Matunuck, R.I. Reuters

SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J.—This week's massive storm ripped through the Casino Pier amusement park here and blasted the Jet Star roller coaster into the Atlantic Ocean—and along with it, a lot of memories for East Coast residents who make such places the anchors of their summers.

"The pier itself is just gone," said Kimberle Rolle Samarelli, executive director of the New Jersey Amusement Association.

Ms. Samarelli's great-grandfather helped pioneer the game-of-chance business along the Seaside Heights beach. Since 1948, Casino Pier has marked the raucous, northern end of the sun-drenched stretch of ice-cream stands, carnival games and arcades. "It is the engine of the economy of the Jersey Shore," Ms. Samarelli said.

"The beacon of the Jersey shore is the pier," said 38-year-old Carli Dapper of Ortley Beach, whose parents met at the shore 40 years ago. "It's forever changed."

This week's East Coast storm heavily damaged an amusement park on an Atlantic Ocean pier in Seaside Heights, N.J. US Air Force/Associated Press

Sleepy in the winter, lively in the summer, the Jersey Shore is just one of many Eastern coastal areas that for generations have shaped summer lives of residents and visitors.

In one way or another, most have been affected by the huge blast of wind and water dubbed Sandy by meteorologists—from the blue-collar boardwalks made famous by Bruce Springsteen's lyrics to the grassy beachfront estates of the Hamptons, east of New York City.

Between those extremes are clapboard neighborhoods that back up on Long Island Sound in Connecticut towns and Victorian gingerbread inns dotting the New Jersey oceanfront and points south.

What makes many of them so widely appealing—a place to stay right by the water—also makes them vulnerable to the tidal surges that usually accompany severe storms like Sandy. Many are dependent on seasonal replenishment of sand paid for by local, state and federal taxpayers.

"The shoreline has changed, but I do not think Cape May itself will change," said Susan Zingman-Leith, who runs a bed-and-breakfast in her town at New Jersey's southern tip.

On Fire Island, N.Y., a surge punched two breaches through the iconic barrier island, home to a string of communities connected by wooden boardwalks where generations of people have summered. Waves churned up by the monster storm reshaped the dunes along much of Fire Island's 32 miles of shoreline.

"It's just gut-wrenching," said Jim Dunphy, facilities manager at Fire Island National Seashore, who was worked there since 1993. "It's such a special place in the summertime, to see the people come and enjoy it. And then it's so peaceful in the winter, when it's just the parks people and the year-round residents, and the animals and the butterflies."

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The worst, he said, was seeing dunes and beach grass leveled by the storm. "It looks almost like a picture of the moon, it's just flat and barren."

Along the Atlantic Ocean in Bridgehampton, N.Y.—on Long Island, about 85 miles east of New York City—stairways that once descended to the beach led to nowhere. Asphalt parking lots were splintered like glass.

A few miles to the east, in East Quogue, Alex Gregor, the local superintendent of highways, said, "A lot of dune is totally blown out. The ocean is right level with the sand now."

In Ocean City, Md., Sandy lopped off the end of the resort city's fishing pier. Two camouflaged Humvees with helmeted troops inside patrolled near the beach Tuesday as a helicopter hovered overhead. Efi Sasi appeared to be the first business owner on the boardwalk to pull up his gray shutter. He was mopping the water out of Sassy Beachwear, his T-shirt and souvenir shop. "I open every day I can," Mr. Sasi said. "I live here. This is my business. This is my food. I'm not a millionaire."

Further north in Dewey Beach, Del.—not far from the more widely known Rehoboth Beach—side streets were flooded and docks at a local marina had been twisted and uprooted by Sandy's waves.

"There's a mess of debris out here that's going to need to be cleaned up," said Dan McCann, a security worker at popular beach bar The Rusty Rudder.

The storm surge tore decks from homes and ripped mailboxes from the ground in the 17th-century beach town of Clinton, Conn. Residents Janis and Hugh Birdsall, who lost power, planned to have "freezer parties" with their neighbors where they will cook all their remaining food over gas grills that they will push into the middle of the street. They did the same thing after Tropical Storm Irene.

Marie Lepis, a speech pathologist, moved to New Jersey's Ortley Beach 11 years ago. During the summers, she could be found standing in a boardwalk kiosk selling $3 tickets to win a Camaro in a raffle to benefit her church, Our Lady of Perpetual Health in Seaside Heights.

She says life in her neck of the woods is "an attitude," adding that "People who move to the shore, especially those to live full-time, do it to relax, to get out of the fast pace."

Not far from Seaside Heights is Belmar, a town of about 6,000 described by some as a low-ley, blue-collar surf spot popular with college students who flock to the cottage accommodations and bars each summer. Jason Soares, owner of 3 Brothers Pizza, swept three inches of brown water from the floors of his boardwalk eatery, which he had sandbagged and boarded up before Sandy's arrival. . "I'm gonna get this place cleaned up today and plan to open this weekend.…There's no place to eat in Belmar," he said.

John Maurer, owner of arcade parlors called Game Room, including one in Seaside Heights, voiced a similar spirit and said he planned to rebuild.

"People don't change. They go on the same vacation each year, and to the same place. It's going to take a big part of their lives away if it doesn't rebuild. I don't think we have a choice."

—Andrew Grossman, Lisa Fleisher, Cameron McWhirter, Will James, Jamila Trindle, Joseph De Avila, William Launder and Jennifer Smith contributed to this article.