FUNNEL-CLOUD’ HITS PERTH AMBOY

Mayor Declares Emergency For Southern Waterfront Area

(Reprinted from Amboy Beacon, Sept. 22, 2010)

PERTH AMBOY — A funnel-shaped cloud that the National Weather Service (NWS) has refused to acknowledge as a tornado cut a swath through the city’s southern Waterfront shortly after 5 p.m. last Thursday, leaving a torn-off roof, fallen trees and damaged cars in its wake. Mayor Wilda Diaz declared a State of Emergency as of 5:15 p.m., as a result of the damages and power-outages caused by the storm. Emergency protective measures put-into-place by her order restricted travel on roadways to emergency and essential reasons only, in-order to clear the roadways of debris and trees. The restrictions were imposed to protect the safety of city residents. “If wires are down, stay-away and treat them as being live,” Diaz said in
a prepared statement. “They can be dangerous, and if you come-into-contact with them, they may cause electrical shock that could result in death. “Call and report all downed wires to the Police Department at 9-1-1,” she added. “If emergency conditions continue, please stay-tuned to your local radio-stations for additional updates.” Power was restored, and the State of Emergency was lifted Friday morning.
Work-crews from the city’s Public Works Department worked through the night, assisted by the Woodbridge Township Parks Department’s Tree Service in clearing the streets of fallen trees, limbs and branches. Diaz had telephoned Township Mayor John McCormac and requested assistance
from the Service, which deployed over a dozen workers and seven trucks to the scene.
The next day, the sun shone brightly as the sounds of chain-saws and branch-grinders filled the air.
Walking the waterfront with her husband Greg, Diaz said that while she felt badly for those who suffered damages, she was happy that “it wasn’t like this in the whole city.”They watched from the parking-lot across Front Street as workers began cutting limbs from a 125-year-old Dutch elm tree, which had provided shade for the summer Concerts by the Bay series, that the storm had uprooted and tossed over the railing. The Mayor said she was still working in her second-floor office in City Hall, High Street, when the storm hit.
“The sky turned dark, there was a downpour of rain, and then it stopped,” Diaz said. “There was a noise that I couldn’t describe.” Several witnesses to the storm said they observed a dark funnel-shaped cloud and “the sound of a freight train roaring through” when it struck. Slavko Petric, owner/operator of Harborside Walk, a lunch-wagon on the Waterfront, said that he heard “noises I never heard before” for only two or
three minutes as he quickly put-away inside his trailer everything that he could.Seabra’s Armory, Front Street, which had sustained severe damages from the nor’easter earlier this season, suffered minor physical damage this time around — except for about 30 bottles of liquor in the new tiki bar that broke from the wind.
“I guess I’ll have to tell the owner that there’s going to be a big liquor bill this month,” said waiter Dean Minelli, who also reported seeing a funnel-cloud. One home on Patterson Street received structural damage when a small roof over its front doorway was detached, lifted over the home and deposited in the backyard of the home behind it. But that did not stop Board of Education member Mark Carvajal from attending the regular monthly Board meeting that evening, which also happened to be his birthday — as well as the 200th Anniversary of Mexican Independence. His parents own Carvajal Mexican Restaurant, Goodwin Street.
The Mexican flag-raising scheduled to be held at City Hall Circle had to be postponed until the following day because of the weather. “A chimney collapsed, a brick garage was leveled, and so-forth,” High Street resident Kathleen DePow, the Curator of the city’s Ferry Slip Museum, said. “I didn’t mind the tree on my car nearly-as-much as the power-lines. Many of the streets in the southern section were closed. “Although the Mayor declared a State of Emergency, we were able to get-down to the Waterfront to check-on the Museum,” she added. “The Ferry Slip is fine. We lost part of the tree in front of the Slip, but there’s no damage to the building. When we saw Bayview Park, we realized how lucky we were.” Fire Chief David Volk estimated that less than 20 buildings had sustained any kind of damage, mostly-caused by flying debris.