By R.J. LIBERATORE Jr.

Staff Writer

The approach of Hurricane Irene combined with Saturday’s new moon presents a potential “worst-case scenario,” said Vincent Jones, director of the Atlantic County Office of Emergency Preparedness. As a result, officials are urging all South Jersey residents to closely monitor the progress of Hurricane Irene as it moves up the Atlantic Coast toward New England.

“This is a scary one,” he said. “Everybody needs to watch out for this one.”

Preliminary rainfall forecasts are anywhere from 4-8 inches to 6-10 inches, Jones said.

He also said forecasters are predicting possible flooding along rain-saturated inland creeks as well as along the coast and back bays. The official storm surge forecast wasn’t expected to be released until later this week when the storm is closer.

 “I expect there will be power outages and trees knocked over by high winds,” he said.

Jones said residents should monitor the storm’s progress on their favorite media outlet.

As of 11 a.m. Wednesday morning, Irene was a Category 2 hurricane located northeast of Cuba with sustained winds of 115 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service.

Irene was forecast to move up along the East Coast, skipping over North Carolina’s Outer Banks as a Category 3 or Category 4 storm before heading north.

Jones said reliable computer models still called for a landfall in Cape May or Atlantic City. However, most others called for the storm to remain off the coast before it makes a second landfall in New England.

“It is still forecast to approach us as a Category 2 storm,” Jones said.

Irene was forecast to pass about 100 miles east of Atlantic City Sunday afternoon.

Category 2 hurricanes are capable of producing winds between 96-110 mph at the eye.

“This is a very large storm,” Jones said.

As of Wednesday morning, hurricane-force winds of greater than 74 miles per hour extended out 50 miles from the eye. Tropical storm force winds of greater than 39 mph extended 205 miles from Irene.

“So we could have high winds across South Jersey,” he said.

Jones said the National Weather Service was expected to begin issuing tropical storm watches on Thursday with warnings to follow on Friday.

“It’s quite possible we would start seeing hurricane watches on Friday night,” he said.

Jones said his office will monitor the situation until Irene reaches the Outer Banks before he makes calls for evacuations.

“The trouble with forecasting the route of hurricanes in South Jersey is that you have to wait until it reaches the Outer Banks and begins to make a turn,” he said.

That gives Jones and his crew about a 14- to 16-hour window of opportunity to make decisions.

Hopefully, Irene will turn out to sea, but history says that isn’t always the case.

Jones said Irene reminds him of the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944 that caused extensive damage all along New Jersey’s coast.

“And we have a lot more people and a lot more infrastructure that can get damaged or destroyed now,” he said.

Jones recommends that all residents prepare “for the worst and hope for the best.”

An extensive list of what residents need to do to prepare for an approaching hurricane is available at www.readyatlantic.org/prepare/hurricane.asp.

“My job is to make everybody pay attention,” Jones said. “If it goes out to sea and everybody paid attention, I did my job.”