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By SHAUN SMITH
Staff Writer
SOMERS POINT – Hurricane Irene kept city employees quite busy throughout the storm and on Monday members of the Department of Public Works were removing the dozen fallen trees in John F. Kennedy Park.
Mayor Jack Glasser, who had spent the majority of the storm in his office in City Hall, said he was proud to be the mayor of the excellent city workers.
“I’m exceptionally appreciative of all the work that was done by the police, volunteer fire department, office of emergency management, Shore Memorial ambulance squad, and of course our own public works for really putting together a great response team to Hurricane Irene,” Glasser said Aug. 30. “I spent a lot of time in city hall over the weekend. Those folks were out there in the thick of it and did so to provide the best emergency response service for everyone.”
Glasser said crews from Atlantic City Electric were working to restore power to many parts of the city that had begun losing power on Saturday. City Hall itself had lost power Thursday evening for a number of hours.
As of this paper’s deadline, Atlantic City Electric reported the largest power outage in the city, at over 40 customers affected, was on Village Drive with smaller pockets of outages on Ocean Heights Avenue and on Meyran and Wilmont avenues near Shore Road.
One resident of Colwick Drive reported power being out for more than 40 hours in her neighborhood when a tree had downed power lines near the intersection at Ambler Road.
A large tree had uprooted and fell into the street, lifting the sidewalk and downing lines into the middle of the street.
According to Councilman Howard Dill, power had been out on Ambler Road since 4 a.m. Sunday but by nearly midnight Monday the tree was removed and power was restored.
“(Councilwomen) Maureen Kern and I along with the fire department light truck and public works assisted the electric company and citizens in restoring the power. Mayor Glasser made many phone calls to various electric company officials as did Maureen and I,” Dill said in an email Tuesday. “When we convinced them of the hazardous conditions that existed and an ACE supervisor arrived, he agreed the tree had to come down due to safety reasons and the wheels started to turn.”
Atlantic City Electric reports that power should be restored by Friday, Sept. 2.
City Administrator Wes Swain said crews were working overtime on Sunday to clean the debris and tree branches that littered the streets. They will be picking up brush, branches and debris that is left curbside as they make their rounds throughout the city. The next brush and leaf collection is Sept. 12-14.
“They’re trying to pick it up in the street first. They’re getting to it as fast as they can,” Swain said Monday.
In anticipation of the storm, residents living east of Route 9 were under a mandatory evacuation order. According to Somers Point Emergency Management Coordinator, more than 30 residents had gone to the shelter at the Dawes Avenue School.
“Jeff Miller made all facilities available to us. It really shows all the plans we’ve been making over the years, the protocols and inter-cooperation in the county, all worked,” said Emergency Management Coordinator Rob Cozen Monday, Aug. 29.
He said Principal Janice Strigh of Charter Tech High School for the Performing Arts made a similar offer to the school located on New Road. In addition, Cozen thanked the Shore Memorial Ambulance Squad and residents who volunteered to assist with the evacuation order.
“It had the potential of being an extremely productive storm. We did not overreact by following the evacuation orders,” said Cozen. “We clocked winds over 55 mph, tremendous flood and a tremendous amount of wind-related damage.”
Cozen said OEM logged 514 calls from Thursday through Sunday and members of his crew secured the closure of the Route 52 Causeway into Ocean City Sunday. He said plywood had blown across the bridge which forced a short closure Sunday morning. The road was closed again in the afternoon after winds scattered debris.
Glasser agreed that when it comes down to peoples’ lives, enough caution cannot be taken.
While he stayed behind, he asked his family to leave town to ensure their safety.
“When I heard those winds on Saturday night and the tornado warnings coming through in Longport and Somers Point coming north; nothing scares you like that. We really don’t see that type of storm force coming through here and we don’t know what type of damage it could cause,” said Glasser. “We’re going to take the lessons we learn from this one and try to improve.”
Cozen agreed that the lessons from this storm should be used to prepare for the next storm because the storm track that was predicted was accurate, although the intensity was less than expected.
“People should all sit down now that the dust has settled and evaluate how really prepared they were with batteries, food, and in event of an evacuation having somewhere to go. Make a checklist. If when power went out, at that moment, they said ‘Gee, I wish I had this,’ and didn’t have it; put it on a list and have it ready for the next event,” said Cozen.
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