"Fortunately, the storm occurred in a cycle when the moon was not at its highest phase, and it was a fast-moving event that didn't linger for a lot of tide cycles," said Steven Hafner, a coastal geologist for the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. "We also had a relatively mild winter, which meant the beaches were in pretty good condition to begin with."

Hafner said Stockton's Coastal Research Center today began surveying beaches up and down the coast to determine what should be done to ready the beaches for the summer.

"In some areas, sand may have to be trucked in. In others, they may rely on natural accretion to do the job," Hafner said.

Yesterday's nor'easter left significant beach erosion up and down the New Jersey coast.

From Long Beach Island south to Cape May, the storm chewed cliffs of sand as high as 12 feet into the dunes in towns such as Atlantic City, Ocean City and Avalon.

The severe beach damage comes just days before the unofficial start of summer - the Memorial Day weekend.

In Ocean City, officials deployed front-end loaders and other heavy equipment to begin grooming the sand.

On the mainland areas at the Shore, utility crews were chopping and cutting trees away from power lines that had been downed by the heavy winds that roared across Cape May and Atlantic Counties yesterday.

As of noon today, about 12,500 Atlantic City Electric customers remained without power. Many of those residents and businesses have been without power for 36 hours.

Some customers may not regain power until tomorrow because there are not enough workers to get to all the problems, according to a spokeswoman for Atlantic City Electric.

Some streets at the Shore remained flooded this morning as the coastal communities are getting back to normal.

The National Weather Service's coastal flood warning ended at 8 a.m.

Yesterday, bridges, schools and roads were closed because of the unusual May nor'easter whose gusts reached 78 m.p.h. - hurricane-strength - in Ocean City and 72 m.p.h. in Sea Isle City.

In Ocean City early this morning, cars still couldn't get through some flooded spots on West and Bay Avenues, but the schools and bridges were open, police said.

The Boardwalk survived the storm with little damage, an officer said.

Low-lying West Wildwood also struggled with some flooding this morning, and possibly a continued shutdown of the Glenview Avenue Bridge, a dispatcher said.

Wildwood schools reopened today, and so did the George Redding Bridge. "We're basically open now," a dispatcher said. ". . . Whatever flooding there was is almost gone."

Yesterday, 48,000 people in Atlantic, Cape May and Salem Counties lost their power.

Many homeowners and businesses have started to struggle with their own repair and cleanup efforts. High winds, for example, blew off part of a warehouse roof in Atlantic County.

John Battaglia, who lives in an oceanfront house in Sea Isle City, Cape May County, said the winds after midnight yesterday sounded like the "proverbial freight train," and the house, which is on pilings, shook so much that a television was knocked off a shelf.

"We thought about evacuating, but it was blowing so hard outside by then that we figured we better stay in," he said.

Coastal storms are common in winter, but the "Mother's Day Storm of 2008" acted as if it had wandered into the wrong season.

"It's very unusual to get it in May," said Jim Eberwine of the National Weather Service.

The nor'easter - so named for the onshore winds it generates out of the Northeast - was spawned by a storm in the Ohio Valley that transferred its energy to the southeast coast, Eberwine said. It moved slowly northeast yesterday.

"It's a perfect setup for bringing up this kind of wind and wave action and tidal flooding," he said.

It's a common setup in winter, but not in May.

Inquirer staff writer Anthony R. Wood contributed to this report.