It seems the news cycle following Hurricane Sandy glossed over the plight of one population of larger-than-life victims. Field Station: Dinosaurs, a New Jersey Meadowlands attraction that hosts tours for school groups and fossil geeks alike, is currently restoring some thirty-odd life-sized, animatronic dinosaurs. For obvious reasons, the reptilian mounds of plastic and metal (truly the stuff of the cradle of life), could not be transported to safety and bore the brunt of last year’s storm.

Talk about resilience. ”9 minutes from Manhattan and 90 million years back in time,” these relics of the Jurassic period have come a long way from the big bang. Meadowlands will see to it that they bounce back right back on to the NJ skyline. Read more about the resilience efforts of Field Station: Dinosaurs at Gothamist. (Photos: Nate Dorr/Gothamist)

A more practical form of resilience has just been demonstrated by the MTA, as the A train service to the Rockaways resumed today, May 30th. 35,000 people have had their subway service restored. A new seawall is being completed that will rise seven feet above the tracks where they run along the beach — a wall two feet higher than Sandy’s surge — which the MTA hopes will stop the ocean from depositing items on the tracks like boats (48) and jet skis (the MTA did not release a figure for the number of jet skis washed up on the A line).

To see images from the MTA’s $650 million Rockaways engineering project — perhaps the single most expensive piece of the East Coast recovery effort from the storm, and an enormous, Jurassic Park-like undertaking — take a look at Rebuilding the Rockaways after Hurricane Sandy: The Recovery. Among the items restored to use: the classic switching control panel, below:

(Photos: MTA)