(Reprinted from Amboy Beacon, Jan. 5, 2011)
A fierce post-Christmas blizzard left residents of the Middlesex County
Bayshore communities from Sewaren through Laurence Harbor digging-out-of some
of the deepest snowfall this regions has seen in decades.
An average of two feet of snow was dumped-on this area, leaving some of the
communities among the hardest hit in the state, according to
AccuWeather.com, which reported on Dec. 26 that “a northward-moving strengthening storm
will unleash a paralyzing blizzard along a vast swath of the I-95 Northeast
corridor into the next day.
“This is the same storm that buried parts of the West under yards of snow
and mud, along with feet of rain in some locations last week,” Alex
Sosnowski, Expert Senior Meteorologist for AccuWeather.com, warned.
“The storm is no joke,” he said. “Major highways could be shut-down in the
region. Some major airports could stop most flights, creating a nightmare
for those souls heading home after the Christmas holiday, from eastern North
Carolina to Maine. Roads are already a mess in North Carolina and
southeastern Virginia, and will quickly become snow-covered and slippery from south to
north in the remainder of the I-95 Northeast.”
According to Sosnowski, “blizzard conditions” would develop from Atlantic
City up-to the outskirts of Philadelphia and “last for several hours into
the evening,” but that area would not “get the worst of the blizzard,” which
was reserved for the swath north of New York City through New England.
“Screaming winds gusting past 40mph for a multiple-hour stretch will create
whiteout conditions at the height of the storm from New Jersey and Long
Island all the way to Maine,” he said. “Blowing and drifting snow will create
an uphill battle for crews working keep the streets clear during the height
of the storm and in its wake for a time.”
Sosnowski also predicted that “people will get stuck on highways and at
airports in this storm,” and that “travel in parts of the coastal mid-Atlantic
and much of New England will become difficult-to-impossible as the storm
slides northward.”
All of this came-to-pass.
In our area, snow began falling after 10 a.m. on Dec. 26, with measurements
of 35 inches in Edison and 21 inches in Sayreville recorded by the
following afternoon.
Most municipal services were curtailed because of the storm, which left
Fire, Police and Public Works Department employees as the only ones continuing
operations.
Schools already were closed for the yearly Winter Recess, but public
buildings remained closed through Dec. 27, except for those hardy souls who
conducted the Perth Amboy City Council’s special closeout meeting for 2010 at 4:30
p.m. that afternoon at City Hall, High Street, with an audience of a
half-dozen.
Police and Public Works employees teamed-up to clear Perth Amboy’s Snow
Emergency Routes of parked vehicles and the white stuff, as the Parking Utility
suspended parking-meter fines and opened its lots to drivers for free
parking.
Two NJTransit buses got stuck on Dec. 28 while navigating the
ever-increasing mounds of snow being deposited along the sides of Perth Amboy’s
side-streets.
Firefighters from Hopelawn, Keasbey, Sayreville and South Amboy assisted
Perth Amboy firefighters in responding to a three-alarm grease fire at Crown
Chicken, Smith Street near State Street, that same day. No injuries were
reported, but there was smoke and water damage to the Metro/PCS cellphone
store next-door.
An investigation will be conducted to determine whether the mandatory
fire-suppression system over the deep-fryer was operative.
While the Crown Chicken fire was brought-under-control, police stretched
yellow crime-scene tape across the sidealks on the other side of Smith Street
to discourage pedestrians from walking under potentially-dangerous blocks of
frozen snow dropping-off the rooftops there.
At the state level, Senate President Stephen Sweeney declared a limited
State of Emergency as Acting Governor in the absence of both Gov. Christopher
Christie and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who were out-of-state when the snowstorm
hit.
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