Early yesterday evening, about 38,000 Atlantic City Electric customers - nearly all in Cape May County - were still without power, according to the company. Since the weekend, utility crews from New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware have helped fix downed poles and wires to restore service to more than 100,000 customers.
But with possible blizzard conditions predicted tomorrow, Cape May County Emergency Management Director Frank McCall said he was preparing for many more outages.
The storm will be an "explosively developing nor'easter," according to Tony Gigi, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly.
The snow - likely to begin after dark today - may mix with sleet at the Shore, Gigi said, which would hold down accumulations. But with snow forecast through tomorrow, Cape May County could get about a foot and 18 inches is possible in Atlantic County, he predicted.
Residents can expect sustained winds of about 30 m.p.h. tomorrow with gusts possibly greater than 45 m.p.h. late in the afternoon, Gigi said.
Beaches should catch a break, however. At its peak, Gigi said, the wind will come from the north, blowing parallel to the coast - and that means less erosion.
McCall said that Cape May County today will double to 18 the number of available emergency shelters. Local officials will go door-to-door looking for people who need help, he said.
Those without power "should make arrangements to stay with family," McCall advised. "It could be for an extended period of time."
Even without further complications, Atlantic City Electric spokeswoman Sandra May said some Cape May County residents could be in the dark until the end of the week. All but a few dozen outages in other counties were fixed yesterday.
Officials here have not attempted to tally the cost of the cleanup or to assess beach damage. There were more pressing matters to deal with.
Road crews pushed snow banks back yesterday to prepare for the next round and cleared storm drains that, if frozen, could lead to flooding and a buildup of ice on roadways.
Crew chiefs tried to give plow drivers and other emergency personnel time to rest Saturday evening or Sunday. Many had worked double and triple shifts.
"The guys are fatigued," said Cape May County Engineer Dale Foster.
In Cape May, where business owners said they feared they could lose tourism over the normally busy Valentine's Day weekend, people already had begun to dig out their candy-colored homes and historic inns. Officials hoped to check for shore erosion yesterday, but they couldn't get a truck over snow that blocked the path to the beach, Mayor Edward Mahaney said.
Mahaney was glad to have power back at his home yesterday afternoon, he said. He had slept two nights in his chair at the municipal office building. At the height of the outage, virtually no one in town had electricity.
Police Chief Diane Sorantino said she knew that Cape May could handle more snow. It was losing power again - or prolonging current outages - that would be difficult.
"We don't even want to talk about the next storm," she said.
A Red Cross shelter at the West Cape May Fire Department was nearly empty yesterday. Nearly all of the more than 100 people who stayed there Saturday had returned home or found somewhere more comfortable to stay.
The Rev. Ildebrando Schifalacqua, 91, and his 90-year-old brother, Italo, were among the last to go. The men, who arrived Saturday morning, were unfazed by the forecast of a second major storm.
Staying at the shelter had been "like a picnic," said Ildebrando Schifalacqua, a retired priest.
By the afternoon, the brothers were preparing to move to a nursing home and the shelter was about to close. It will remain stocked with cots and other supplies in case it is needed in the coming days.
At 2 p.m., about 350 people were in other Cape May County shelters, down from a high of 850.
Sun and warmer temperatures allowed some Cape May residents to get out of their homes for the first time since Friday night. Elderly women made their way with walkers and canes on tricky sidewalks downtown. The La Mer Motor Inn checked in guests tired of staying at home without power.
Joanne Heal, a retired teacher from Lower Township, maneuvered through messy roads to check on her summer home on Queen Street. She normally comes by twice a day to feed stray cats, she said, but she hadn't been down since Friday. She was worried about the animals and about the home's pipes.
Plus, she said, she needed to get out.
"I was getting bored of doing jigsaw puzzles and playing solitaire."
Inquirer staff writer Anthony R. Wood contributed to this article.
|
|
|
|
|
|
MOST POPULAR PHILLY.COM PHOTOS
Philly.com news blogs
Philly.com Promotions
