Outages, but area appears to escape worse

Much to their surprise and relief, residents of Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties awoke Tuesday to find that the hurt inflicted by Sandy was less painful than many had expected.

There were downed trees and power outages, but early assessments found nothing worse, although the lingering lack of electricity was beginning to try some residents' patience.

As a second evening without power approached, Mechelle Faria of Cherry Hill prepared to throw something on the grill Tuesday evening for her children and wondered if she might have to buy a cooler and ice soon.

She did not look forward to another night like Monday night: The youngest of her five children, 4-year-old twins, would not sleep without a night light, and she was afraid to light a candle because "they're pretty nosy about things like that."

So Faria, whose husband is away on business, let the twins sleep in her room and lit one small candle.

"I didn't sleep much," she said.

But for her older children, she saw the predicament as "an opportunity to live beyond the Internet."

The local area was relatively unscathed, officials said.

Burlington County dispatched crews and emergency equipment to Ocean and Atlantic Counties, which were hit harder, county spokesman Ralph Shrom said.

Camden County sent five fire engines and other support to Toms River Monday night, spokesman Dan Keashan said. The equipment has since returned.

Gloucester County sent EMS crews to help in Atlantic City and four fire pump trucks to assist in Middlesex County, said spokeswoman Debra Sellitto.

"As our freeholder director, Robert Damminger, said, we were extremely prepared and extremely lucky," Sellitto said.

In Burlington County, only 80 people and 20 pets went into emergency shelters, leaving capacity for displaced persons from the coastal counties, Shrom said.

Shrom said the county highway department was working with utility companies to get roads cleared, including parts of Routes 38 and 541.

He did strike a cautionary note about Wednesday: "We don't have major flooding, but we are still concerned about the high tides, especially tomorrow evening."

Freeholder Director Bruce Garganio was meeting with officials at Viking Yacht to assess storm damage there. The Bass River company employs 2,000.

Camden County Freeholder Ian Leonard was out with parks and public works crews assessing damage and helping move trees and branches out of roadways.

The Cooper River and the Delaware River both flooded but quickly receded and did not cause too much damage, he said. Last year, Hurricane Irene was "much worse with flooding," he said, but Sandy had stronger winds and left a messier cleanup.

Even after crews worked all day Tuesday, it will take a further two or three days before the county's roads are clear, Leonard said.

Though the Greenwich Township levee in the lowest part of Gloucester County did not break, water still went through and flooded the immediate area, Sellitto said. Public works crews installed pumps Tuesday morning to send water back into the Delaware, she said.

Ruth Rogers, 73, of Moorestown, said she was surprised at how much she missed electricity when her power went off at 4 p.m. Monday. It had not come back as of late Tuesday.

"I don't know what's going on in the world. I don't have TV or radio and don't know what happened in Atlantic City," she said.

As of late Tuesday, according to PSEG and Atlantic City Electric, more than 46,000 customers in Burlington County remained without power, as did nearly 16,000 in Camden County, and more than 5,000 in Gloucester County.

Perhaps typical of the anxieties caused by Sandy was the experience of another Moorestown woman and her daughter and grandson.

A falling tree knocked down power lines, exploded a transformer, and pierced the wall of an upstairs room in their Highland Avenue house.

"We heard an explosion outside" about 5 p.m. Monday, said Jacquelyn Page. She said her mother, 93-year-old Rusty Sprinkle, let out a scream and said, " 'A tree's hit the house,' and then I started screaming because my son was upstairs."

Her 28-year-old son, Scott, called out that he was OK. He said he had been sitting in a chair in his room when the tree hit the roof and pierced the wall. He dived from his chair, Page said, and when he looked up there was a 21/2-foot limb jutting "like a needle" into the room.

Ralph Sitley of West End Avenue in Haddonfield and others had similar tales.

Sitley said he was lucky when a towering oak went down beside his home, scraping a front corner but causing little damage.

Monday evening, Freddy Hidalgo signed on to Facebook and found a horrific picture: His Freddy's Restaurant, on Westfield Avenue in East Camden, was crushed under two trees.

"I thought, 'Everything is done, now what?,' " Hidalgo recalled in Spanish on Tuesday.

Three Camden community centers - Malandra Hall, Isabel Miller, and North Camden - will remain open as shelters, possibly for days, city spokesman Robert Corrales said.

Haddonfield schools will remain closed on Halloween, according to an e-mail sent to parents Tuesday afternoon citing "student safety issues." Haddonfield Memorial High School lost power during the storm. District officials decided to close the borough's three elementary schools and one middle school in response to downed wires "in the pathways of where students walk to school."

Like many, Lumberton residents were prepared for the worst. After major flooding in 2004, 2007, and 2011, people living near the South Branch tributary of Rancocas Creek weren't taking any chances.

They built walls of sandbags and bales of hay around their homes.

"We were as ready as we could be," said Don Ferrell, 42, who lives on Point Street and owns Custom Craft Concrete. The creek overflowed, passing over his dock and the line of hay bales he put out, but it never passed the gazebo behind his house. "We usually get flooded but we lucked out this time," Ferrell said.