Township And Residents Continue Cleanup Efforts After Irene

Cleanup efforts by Public Works and residents continue in Lacey Township following Hurricane Irene, which dumped 6 inches of rain in the area, flooded streets, ransacked trees and pulled down wires.

Public Works will be working on removing debris and downed trees throughout town, Director Casey Parker said.

“All throughout the week we will aggressively and actively be picking up debris,” he said. “It’s ongoing and we will continue.”

The tide has subsided so flooding is no longer an issue, Parker said. The township is just overwhelmed with fallen tree limbs and debris.

“People are bringing in a ton of brush into the recycling yard. They’re helping out a ton. It’s a community effort,” he said.

But Parker pointed out that the recycling center only takes brush from local homeowners, not businesses.

“There’s just too much volume,” he said.

Residents continue to pile up branches and rake leaves but many seem to be relieved that is all they have to do.

Carla Howlett of Forked River was outside with her son raking leaves into a garbage bag. She said she had to have one branch cut down and was not thrilled that the storm was overhyped.

“But it’s better to be over prepared than under,” Howlett said.

After purchasing cases of water and ice, filling up buckets with water, and taping windows, the family stayed up most of the night to watch the storm. Their electricity went out at around 4 a.m. but came back on not long after.

Off Beach Boulevard, at the Lacey Elks, there is a dumpster full of branches and debris as four trees surrounding the building fell down.

“Fortunately it wasn’t as bad as they led us to believe,” said Carl Cronan, a resident of Forked River and a member of the dock committee.

Cronan evacuated his home in the Beach Boulevard area but returned to find that he only lost one 3-foot branch.

“We expected a lot of flooding but there was no major damage and I didn’t hear any horror stories,” he said.

But the Beach Boulevard area was hit the worst in town as the bay inundated side roads.

“It wasn’t exactly as bad as they forecasted,” Frank Smith, a resident of Leilani Drive, said.

The conditions may not have been as bad as Smith expected but swans were able to go for a dip on the street where the flooding reached over knee high.

Smith evacuated with his wife to their second home in Robbinsville, New Jersey. He took his boats out of the water, removed everything from his shed and headed up north.

His home in Forked River was left unharmed but Robbinsville got hit harder than the Jersey Shore. There he had approximately 5 inches of water in his basement.

But Smith was just relieved that Forked River was not hit harder, there was no personal injury or damage done to his home, he said. He credits the west wind that pushed the tide back into the bay.

“Previous storms in the past couple of years were worse,” he said, flashing back to 1991 when homes in the area went under.

Over in Lanoka Harbor, residents were still experiencing power outages. Electricity returned to Hemlock Lane as of 3 a.m. today, Adina Kurtz said.

“It was definitely an inconvenience. The storm was worse than we thought it would be,” Kurtz said. If Lacey faces a stronger storm, the family will evacuate, she said.

JCP&L is reporting approximately 3,152 residents of Forked River and 297 in Lanoka Harbor are still without power. The company hopes 90 percent of the power will be restored by the end of the week.

On the other end of Hemlock Drive, Diane Fedor had electricity throughout the storm but said the cleanup is unbelievable, as she raked her yard, which was still full of debris.

In the front of Fedor’s yard, was a pile of branches, which was three times the size before her neighbor brought some to the recycling center, she said.

“It has been some mess,” she said. “We thought the storm was over Sunday but then the wind picked up ferociously.”

But Fedor still considers herself lucky, she said.

“It’s heartbreaking what other people are going through,” she said. “The storm was pretty good in this area compared to others.”