Communities coped in wake of nor'easter
Oceanport readied shelter; despite outages, no one came

CHRIS KELLY staff Mario Santiago, of Clayton Tree Service, uses a chain saw to clear away a tree limb damaged during the Feb. 14 nor'easter.

Senior citizen Gloria Kretowicz spent last Thursday inside her Red Bank condominium wearing two pairs of pants, two shirts, a robe and a winter hat.

Kretowicz, who lives at the Red Bank Manor condominium complex on Manor Drive, said the ice storm that pummeled the area Feb. 14 left her without electricity until Thursday, and without heat until Friday evening.

"We have a lot of seniors who live here," she said in an interview Monday. "A lot of them have sons or daughters in the area that they could go stay with. I don't have family in the area, so I had no where to go."

The storm, which began late Tuesday and continued into Valentine's Day, hit Monmouth County hard , transforming many streets into a landscape of broken tree limbs and downed wires.

Kretowicz said she left her gas oven on during the day to help warm her kitchen, and spent most of her time since she lost power on Wednesday afternoon on the phone with Jersey Central Power and Light (JCP&L).

Despite driving hazards and outages, the nor'easter glazed trees with a layer of ice, creating a magical effect like this crystalline tree at the Monmouth Mall in Eatontown. At left: Traveling along Route 35 in Eatontown was hazardous due to road conditions and the possibility of falling tree limbs.

She said she experienced a lot of problems just getting a person to speak to, spending hours on the phone until one of her neighbors, Red Bank Councilman John P. Curley, gave her a phone number to call to reach JCP&L.

"All of Red Bank Manor was without heat," she said. "That's 178 condos without electricity or heat. On Friday, we got electricity, but no heat."

"I had neighbors in my living room," Curley said, "asking me what I could do for them."

He said that during the approximately 36-hour blackout, he was often on the phone with Red Bank Borough Administrator Stanley Sickels.

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"Stanley kept in touch with me the whole time," he said. "He was on top of things."

Kretowicz said that although she had no family to stay with, she was told that a shelter had been set up at Maple Place School in Oceanport, where she could go if need be.

"I don't know where that is," she said, "and I don't have a car."

Oceanport Police Captain Mauro "Buzz" Baldanza said last Thursday that approximately 50 percent of Oceanport was without power from 9 a.m. last Wednesday morning until after 3 p.m. the next day.

So the borough opened an emergency shelter at Maple Place School, which is located in an area of the town that did not lose power, at around 3 p.m. on Feb. 14.

But Baldanza said no one showed up.

"We had an announcement made that we were opening the shelter on a local radio station and we posted it on our Web site," he said.

"But we really did not get anyone showing up," he said, adding, "We did get a call from Red Bank that about 100 senior citizens would be coming, but nobody came."

Baldanza explained that one reason the shelter remained unused was due to the power outages.

"When people have power loss, they forget to turn on the radio or they do not have battery operated radios," he said. "And most telephones require power, and if your computer isn't working it is hard to get the information out there."

Baldanza said that Shrewsbury and Eatontown also reached out to Oceanport to use the shelter, but again, nobody showed.

"We were prepared for it, though," he said.

The shelter was able to accommodate at least 100 people in the cafeteria at the school.

The American Red Cross provided cots and blankets for overnight accommodations and school personnel were prepared to operate the cafeteria and provide coffee, tea, water and sandwiches.

The bulk of Oceanport homes had power back by late evening Feb. 14, but Baldanza said there were several outages throughout the night.

The last area of town to have power restored was Horseneck Point at about 3 p.m. on Feb. 15, he said.

During the ice storm, borough police used the PA system to alert Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) members to assist with critical care patients around the town.

"There is a listing of critical care patients that need power to be restored for medical purposes," Baldanza said. "Our CERT team went out to about 12 to 16 people on the list. It was a great help."

Baldanza said he was also grateful for the help provided by school officials.

"When we decided to open the shelter, the school was open within 30 minutes," Baldanza said.

Oceanport School Superintendent James DiGiovanna said last Thursday that he closed both schools in the district last Wednesday and Thursday due to the weather conditions.

And the schools were closed again on Friday and Monday for Presidents' Day.

"The days off will give our custodial staff and snow cleaning crews a chance to clean up the streets and make the sidewalks clear," DiGiovanna said.

The busy intersection at Shrewsbury and Sycamore Avenues had stop signs at each corner, but no working traffic lights, and motorists going east/west and north/south were forced to be considerate and take turns crossing the intersection.

The night before, the Ascione family, who live on Glenwood Drive in Tinton Falls, had spent part of the night huddled in front of their fireplace. In addition, a relative with a four-month-old baby came to their house because the electricity was also out at her home on East Riverdale Avenue, about 1/4 mile away.

"It got colder and colder in the house and by the time it got dark we were huddled together in front of the fire with coats and blankets," Kerry Ascione said. "The kids were excited because we lit candles and brought out flashlights which they used inside the tents they put up."

Another Tinton Falls resident, Peter Karavites, said he was without power until 9 p.m. Thursday.

Karavites, who lives at the corner of Hance and Sycamore Avenues, said the power line from the street to his house collapsed under the weight of a limb that fell from a tree. It ripped out gutters and siding and landed on his three week-old truck.

He and his wife shipped the kids off to neighbors who still had electricity, and stayed in the house.

Karavites is president of the Tinton Falls Board of Education, so he was the person who made the decision to close the schools on Wednesday morning. On Thursday, there was no power at the Atchison School on Sycamore Avenue and at the Swimming River School on Hance Road. The middle school had power on and off, so the decision was made to close the schools for a second day.

Karavites said the school district had set aside three snow days, now one is left.

Assemblyman Michael Panter, who lives on Sycamore Avenue in Shrewsbury, said he was without heat and electricity for more than 36 hours. He added that he was disappointed with JCP&L's response since the storm had been predicted for several days.

"For the elderly and those with compromised health, this goes beyond an inconvenience and puts them at risk," he said.

Panter said he plans to sit down with officials from JCP&L to discuss the company's emergency response plan and to ensure that future emergencies are handled in a timely and thorough fashion."

According to Panter, JCP&L had more than 200 line crews, 330 hazard responders, and 100 tree crews working to restore power to more than 20,000 homes and business that were still without power last Thursday and Friday.

Eatontown Mayor Gerald Tarantolo said Tuesday that he was very proud of the way the borough's emergency management team worked together to cope with the reported 6,000 JCP&L customers that had lost power.

"We had a significant number of intersections without traffic signals," he said, "and we had a significant number of downed live wires in neighborhoods."

Eatontown has about 6,600 households, including apartments, and some of the borough's many commercial businesses in the borough also lost power.

Tarantolo said that the borough initiated a "code red," which is a reverse 911 calling system, and residents were strongly advised to stay inside their homes to avoid the live wires.

"Bill Mego, the fire chief and emergency management coordinator, set up his head-quarters at the fire house in the Borough Hall complex. All of our people did an outstanding job," he said. "Bill did a great job deploying people to the problem areas."

Tarantolo said that although there were calls to the borough's first aid squad, there were no injuries due to the live wires, and Mego posted emergency workers at downed wire sites, to help keep people away from the danger.

Tarantolo said that although there was the option to send residents to the shelter Oceanport had set up, no Eatontown residents went there.

"People tend to ride it out," he said. "They stay in their homes with candles and flashlights until the situation gets too severe."

Tarantolo said that by early in the day last Thursday, power had been restored in the borough, and that the emergency plan the borough has in place, once again proved successful.

Staff writers Layli Whyte, Christine Varno and Linda DeNicola contributed to this report