County, Manasquan OEM rescue dozens stranded on Route 18
FREEHOLD, NJ (December 28)– With Monmouth County roads showing blacktop one day after the snow stopped falling, county road crews have been deployed to assist the state. This afternoon, four county tandem trucks with snowplows and heavy equipment began clearing beleaguered Route 18.
Meanwhile, the county Office of Emergency Management (OEM) and Manasquan OEM rescued about two dozen motorists who had become stranded on Route 18. A convoy of Army trucks Manasquan normally uses for tidal flooding was dispatched Sunday night and rescued 12 to 18 people. The same convoy was deployed last night and picked up another 11. Route 18 had not been plowed.
On Sunday and Monday nights, county snowplow operators also cleared roads assisting Jersey Central Power & Light Co. personnel who were responding to power outages.
“County roads such as Routes 524, 537, 547 and many others are showing blacktop today as a result of the work county road crews have been doing since 10 a.m. Sunday morning,” said Freeholder John P. Curley, liaison to the county Department of Public Works and Engineering. “The county’s public works and engineering crews do an excellent job keeping county roads safe and drivable.”
Monmouth County’s Public Works crews have been working since 10 a.m. Sunday morning when they began applying salt brine to county roads in advance of the predicted snowfall. The salt brine helps prevents snow and ice from bonding to the road surface, making plowing that much easier after the snowfall. As a result, most county roads showed blacktop today.
Monmouth County is responsible for about 1,000 lane miles of roads in the county. The county has 115 trucks outfitted with spreading and plowing capabilities. About 200 personnel were working to clear the snow from roadways as a result of this storm.
“One of the challenges with this storm has been the wind,” said John W. Tobia, director of the county’s Department of Public Works and Engineering. “The one-two punch of the steady 10 to 15 mph winds and gusts of more than 40 mph have been undoing some of the road work, but we have been diligent and have cleared the county roads – most of them are down to blacktop.”
“We began gearing up for this storm on Saturday,” Tobia added. “We opened up our snow room to monitor the storm’s progress and we began dispatching crews from the county’s nine highway districts on Sunday morning.
At that time crews began applying the liquid salt brine. Then, before the snow actually started falling, the crews began applying rock salt treated with magnesium chloride.
“The key was to keep the ice and snow from bonding to the road surface,” Tobia said. “Some lanes were slushy instead of iced over. That’s generally the first step before the plows come by and push it all aside.”
According to the National Weather Service, snow and windy conditions began in Monmouth County late Sunday morning and produced a higher than average snowfall overnight Sunday into Monday morning. Acting Gov. Steve Sweeney declared a state of emergency in New Jersey due to the blizzard that moved through the state during that time.
Monmouth County concentrates its efforts on county roads first and then works to assist municipalities with their plowing needs. Through shared service agreements, county road crews helped clear roads in Howell, Wall and Upper Freehold townships. They also helped plow the National Guard Armory in Red Bank. The towns reimburse the county for any resources used.
A number of towns also purchase magnesium-treated salt from the county at a lower cost.
This is the third year the county has been using the salt brine combined with magnesium chloride-treated rock salt. The salt brine and a pre-application of treated rock salt prevent the snow and ice from bonding to the roads, and the treated rock salt is environmentally friendly. It does not burn the grass or other roadside vegetation nor does it corrode the trucks or the steel bridge spans.
The new rock salt is much more efficient than the old rock salt, which was very corrosive to bridge structures, roadside vegetation, the roadway itself and trucks and equipment, Tobia said.
“We have found that magnesium chloride-treated rock salt is much more effective and, therefore, there is a savings in man hours and material,” he said. “We use approximately 30 to 50 percent less material and reduction in spreading trips, depending on the snow event, for the same result. By reducing the number of trips, we are reducing costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
As a result, there have been far fewer telephone calls from local police departments about trouble spots, Tobia said. Typically, when police dispatchers call to report icy conditions – usually on bridges or curved roadways – the county dispatches additional trucks to perform some spot treatments.
“County highway personnel set the standard and example on snow and ice control operations,” Curley said.
Township road crews continue to battle one of the most severe snow storms in recent memory with a goal of reaching all township roads by midnight on Tuesday, said Mayor Gerard P. Scharfenberger.
Road crews have been working fervently around the clock since 10:00 am on Sunday, December 26th. Township crews, consisting of 40 plows and 6 front end loaders, supplemented by an additional 25 plows and 4 front-end loaders belonging to private contractors, are working to clear more than 300 miles of township road, Scharfenberger said.
Mayor Scharfenberger issued a local state of emergency for Middletown Township while township crews work to make local roads as safe for travel as possible.
“The sheer volume of the snow generated by this storm is far greater than we’ve seen in many years so plowing is taking longer than usual. Anyone who does not absolutely need to be on the road should remain at home as long as possible. The fewer cars on the road, the faster plow operators can complete their work,” Scharfenberger said.
“We appreciate everyone’s continued patience and cooperation while crews work to complete the plowing. We will get to every street as quickly as possible,” Scharfenberger added.
Road crews generally prioritize main and arterial roads ahead of local, residential streets and cul-de-sacs. However, top priority must be given to clearing any necessary roads for first aid and fire emergencies during storms. As a result, plow operators must continually be diverted to respond to emergency calls, explained Public Works Director Ted Maloney.
There have been more than 270 fire and first aid emergency incidents in the last 36 hours and over 1,200 emergency calls. Normal volume for this time period is about 80 incidents, said Township Administrator Anthony Mercantante.
Due to a tremendous call volume today, some calls to Town Hall are not going through. Calls simply asking when your street will be plowed are difficult to answer due to the magnitude of the situation, but again our goal is to reach all streets at least once by midnight. Callers are reminded to limit 9-1-1 calls to true medical and health emergencies, Mercantante said
Wait until your street is completely plowed before clearing driveways and sidewalks if possible. Facing the street, shovel snow from left to right since the plows will also pass from left to right. Any accumulation that protrudes into the road can be plowed back to the curb without pushing it back into your driveway, Maloney said.
Residents are also reminded that township ordinances prohibit shoveling or blowing snow into the street. The snow will only be pushed back into your driveway and onto sidewalks when the plows return, Maloney said.
Senator Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth, Mercer) provided the following travel information from the New Jersey State Department of Transportation regarding the situation on Route 18 in Monmouth County due to Sunday’s storm:
“The New Jersey Department of Transportation is mobilizing all available resources and will work continuously to clear Routes 18, 34 and 35. To obtain status reports or find out if a road is open or closed, call 511or go to www.511nj.orgfor real time information about the storm cleanup efforts.
“I urge everyone to call the above number or access the above website to determine the safest travel route for Wednesday morning’s commute.”
Paul Mulshine says he will blame Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno if his cat poops on the rug. Really, he said that.
Mulshine’s cat usually poops outdoors, but the usual spot, probably on a neighbor’s property, is snow covered and the pussy won’t go where it usually goes. Mulshine wasn’t prepared for the storm. He couldn’t navigate the snow covered roads to get kitty litter so his pussy would have a warm place to do it.
Guadagno is at fault because she’s on vacation out of state at the same time Governor Christie is out of state, leaving Senate President Steve Sweeney in charge as Acting Governor.
Mulshine speculates that Guadagno vacationing at the same time as Christie could be the end of her political career. He quotes Rick Shaftan as saying that “nothing will screw up your poll numbers more than snow.” Shaftan, who is famous for talking to Mulshine and for running Steve Lonegan’s 2009 gubernatorial primary, noted that former New York Mayor John Lindsay lost the 1969 GOP primary due to mishandling a snow storm. Lindsay was reelected on a third party line.
If Shaftan, Lonegan, Mulshine and the ideologues were in charge of the NJ GOP, like they want to be, a third party candidate could get elected in New Jersey too.
Mulshine and Shaftan speculate that Guadagno wants the GOP nomination to run against U.S. Senator Bob Menendez in 2012. Yet another example of ideologues who can’t count.
If the NJ GOP mounts a top tier talent challenge to Menendez in 2012 we’re in deep trouble as a nation. Barack Obama will be on the top of the Democratic ticket in 2012. The only way a Republican is going to win a state wide race in 2012 is if Obama is unelectable in New Jersey. If that is the political environment in 2012 the economy will be in worse shape than it is now. Obama’s poll numbers are over 50% in NJ now, as bad as things are.
Mulshine and Shaftan have a strange bedfellow in windbag Senator Ray Lesniak who called in from Florida to criticise Guadagno and Christie for leaving Sweeney in charge of cleaning up the snow.
Sweeney assured Christie he wouldn’t create mischief while keeping the Governor’s seat warm. If Christie didn’t trust Sweeney to keep his word, other arrangements would have been made. If Sweeney breaks his word, other arrangements will be made in the future.
The constitutional purpose of the Lt. Governor’s office is to prevent one person from controlling two-thirds of the state government, as was the case when Dick Codey was Governor and Senate President after Jim McGreevey’s resignation and when Don DiFrancesco held both offices after Christine Whitman’s resignation. The current banter is nonsense.
Senator Donald Norcross is the sponsor of the Anti-Snow Dumping Act (S1924). The bill would prohibit the common practice of plowing snow off private land and dumping it onto public areas, where, he says, it can become a major public safety hazard and result in additional costs to taxpayers.
We need a state law for that?
What about snow that public workers plow onto private land?
What about the homeowners and tenants whose driveways are blocked by thousands of pounds of snow by public plows? What about businesses that are inaccessable after the plows drive by?
This is an issue that should be handled on the local level, by ordinance or common sense. We don’t need a state law for it.
Norcross said he wants to give local law enforcement and public works departments “straightforward and simple tools to stop the wasteful and selfish practice” of snow dumping. Local law enforcement already have simple straightforward tools; guns and badges. Public works guys have radios to call the guys with guns and badges.
Unfortunately, Norcross’s bill passed the Senate unanimously on December 13. Joe, Jennifer and Sean! What were you thinking?
Hopefully the bill will melt in the Assembly. Huh! Well, hopefully Governor Christie will veto the bill and make fun of it at his next town hall meeting.
This storm and the accompanying road conditions are by far the worst I’ve ever witnessed. Roads throughout the bayshore, even the State Highways that have been plowed repeatedly are barely passable, if passable at all.
Today was one of those days not to take your plans too seriously, even if you thought you were prepared.
I was prepared, so I thought.
Yesterday morning I went to my office to get my little pickup truck, hook up the plow and headed home to watch the Jets lose and the Giants get embarrassed.
Once it was clear there was no coming back for the Giants I went out and plowed the driveway and drove back to the office to clear the lot. My truck and plow are small and this was going to be a big storm. Best to get ahead of it. In the hour it took to get home from the office, crawling behind the DOT contractors clearing Route 36, the driveway was covered again. I plowed it again and called it a night.
This morning started out as expected. Looking out the window I could see the winds were still very strong. The white caps on the bay were more ferocious than I’d ever seen before. None of the streets in downtown Highlands appeared to be cleared. A few brave souls were trying to dig out their cars to get to work. Today was going to be a long day, but there was no rush at 6:30am. Today was going to be a clean up day, not a business day. There was time to tweak Paul Mulshine and the ideologues.
It was about time to clean off the truck and clear the driveway.
I live atop the bluff in Highlands and share the driveway with my neighbor. As is usually the case after a snow storm, Mrs. Neighbor is the first out and shoveling. She shovels where she knows I am going to plow in a half hour or so. I stopped questioning why last winter; it is just what she does. Her teenage boys join her after a little while. Then I come out, warm and clean up my truck and plow. When I’m about done plowing Mr. Neighbor comes out, takes a survey and if need be cleans up what is left with his 30 year old 14 horsepower rear wheel drive Toro tractor and plow. That’s the routine.
So far so good. I leave the house and greet the boys. I shout down the driveway to Mrs. Neighbor to take it easy as I’ll be down the hill with the plow momentarily. The truck is warming up, I’m scraping the ice and snow off the windows when the unexpected happens
.
Mr. Neighbor, like a gladiator entering the arena, exists his garage straddling his 14 horses and heads down the path his wife and boys had cleared. He rides the tractor right past me without so much as a glance, as his intense glare was on the task ahead. He gets to the end of the clear path, enters the snow and promptly stops. He is stuck. It would have been funny, if I was not on the wrong side of the tractor with a plow that would have easily cleared the driveway had he waited five minutes.
There was no moving the 14 horses. The tractor would not go back up the hill.While trying to push the tractor up the hill, the chains on the tires were ripping into the driveway we got repaved a year or so ago.The best bet was to dig a clearing for the tractor off to the right so that I could get by with the plow and clear the driveway for everyone, just as I would have done already had Mr. Neighbor only waited five minutes.
My little truck with plow, left. Mr. Neighbor's stuck tiny tractor, center. The Neighbor family clearing a spot for the stuck tractor, background.
Finally we get the tractor out of the way and I cleared the lower driveway. Now the tricky part. I always go back up the driveway in reverse with the plow. Otherwise I would be plowing snow uphill into my house and into Mr. and Mrs. Neighbor’s house. Its tricky because I need to get some speed going to get up the hill without getting stuck in ice and without damaging any of the cars parked in the snow or either house. Today it was trickier because I had to navigate around the tractor, which Mr. Neighbor was still sitting on for some reason. I over compensated for Mr. Neighbor and slid off the driveway. My truck was half on the driveway and half on a drop off to my front lawn. Mr. Neighbor smiled for the first time this morning.
My little stuck truck, left. Mr. Neighbor's tiny stuck tractor, right. Plowed lower driveway, background.
I called a tow truck operator who I had run against for borough council twice (note to Gene and Ed if you’re reading, it often works to be civil with people who you disagree with) who showed up with in an hour and had me back on four wheels within 10 minutes of arriving. I looked up the driveway. The Neighbors had managed to move one of their vehicles caddy corner into the place where I had hoped to get to so that I could clear the upper driveway. Over two hours had already passed and I’d only done half of what I’d planned. If only Mr. Neighbor had waited five minutes. Time for me to take care of my office lot and the friends who I promised I would help out.
The roads were horrible. I was able to clear, partly, one friends lot. None of the roads to Sea Scape Manor were passable. Even if they were, I might be able to get down their driveway and not get out. I had to cross the Azzolina Bridge before I could turn around to get back into Highlands. Sea Bright looked like a ghost town, except for the abandoned vehicles at the base of the bridge. A Volvo with its lights on and a National Park Service truck, complete with plow, both of which appeared to be parked.
Abandoned vehicles at the base of the Azzolina Bridge
I finally made it to my office in Belford around 2PM. Route 36 had been plowed repeatedly all night and was not clear.
Route 36, Leonardo section of Middletown around 2PM
I couldn’t access my lot in Belford. The snow that the DOT contractors had plowed was taller than I am. Maybe we’ll be closed tomorrow too.
None of the side streets off of Route 36 appeared to be plowed. While navigating one of those streets trying to get to a friend’s business to see if he was still using his front loader a teenage boy about 15 or 16 jumped into the middle of the street to flag me down and beg that I clear his driveway so that his father could get his car out to go to work at the post office. I got stuck in that driveway but managed to clear it out well enough for Dad to get to work. Then Granddad, who appeared to be in his 80’s asked that I clear his van out and move the snow away from the backdoor of the house that he usually uses. I told him that I couldn’t do it until junior left for work, which would require just a bit of shoveling. I asked for $20 for what I had done so far and told him I’d be back. I got the $20 and didn’t go back.
My friend had a front loader. His lot was clear and the snow piled high. But I had no idea where my friend and his front loader were. Both were gone and his phone didn’t answer. Another friend answered his cell and said he would clear the driveways to my lot. He said he’d call me when he goes to my place. I haven’t heard from him yet.
Heading back to Highlands, the roads were still horrible.
Route 36 at about 4pm. Highlands on the left, Middletown on the right.
Ralph St, Highlands at about 4PM
Finally I got home. Neighbor’s 14 horses was still stuck where we left it hours ago, but there were no cars caddy corner at the top of the driveway. I successfully navigated around the tractor and up the driveway. Down I come with the first swipe at the upper driveway. I pushed the snow into the pile I started earlier and backed up. Something’s wrong. The plow won’t go up. I check the wires. It’s connected and I can hear it engaging, but no movement.
The good news was I was home. Back up the hill in reverse, dragging the plow. Safely around the tractor and into my spot.
Paul Mulshine wrote a blog post last week wherein he wittingly or not shed light on the puzzle of New Jersey’s conservative ideologues.
Mulshine was tauting a post by the blogger formerly known as Manly Rash that suggested that NJ GOP Chairman Jay Webber should be replaced because he canceled a meeting of the State GOP Committee. Conservatives have been upset that the NJGOP has not adopted the GOP’s 2008 National Platform, particularly its pro-life planks.
The various NJ Tea Parties and Steve Lonegan’s Americans for Prosperity had planned to demonstrate at the scheduled meeting in order to gain support for various proposed resolutions before the committee,” Support for the Governor’s reforms at the DRPA,Joining the lawsuit against Obamacare, Stopping the implementation legislation for Obamacare in New Jersey, Support for New Jersey Citizens’ right to privacy when flying (TSA pat-downs), and Repealing the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) which is New Jersey’s own version of the Obama administration’s “Cap and Trade” energy tax,” according to Rash.
Webber said he canceled the meeting because he and other members were busy in Trenton with the legislature in session. The ideologue conservatives adopted a conspiracy theory that Webber cancelled the meeting to silence them.
This conservative blogger supports each of the initiatives that Rash wrote of and supports the pro-life plank of the National GOP platform. This conservative blogger also supports Jay Webber and Governor Chris Christie. The latter has earned me the RINO label from some. I’ve even been nicknamed Arlen.
Mulshine says, conservatives are supposed to stand on principle. He says Webber violated principle when threw his support to Chris Christie in the 2009 GOP Gubernatorial primary over Steve Lonegan. The principle of “Loneganwas perhaps the cheapest skinflint ever to run for office in this great state. He really meant to cut state government.”
The principle that Webber, Christie, and even Senator Mike Doherty who has earned the Loneganites scorn, are guilty of violating is the principle of irrelevancy. The cutting your nose off dispite yourself principle.
Yet Mulshine surprised me in his blog post. Despite his nearly constant criticism of Christie for not fulfilling all of his campaign promises in 11 months, Mulshine wrote this line that demonstrates that he can occassionally see beyond his blinders:
“Webber, despite his conversion, is a huge improvement on Tom Wilson, the prior chairman, who agitated for driver’s licenses for illegal aliens. And Christie, despite his flaws, is a huge improvement over Jon Corzine.
But this is just another reminder that the New Jersey Republican Party has a long way to go.”
My apologies to Tom Wilson.
The New Jersey Republican Party does have a long way to go. However, it has come further in the last year under the leadership of Christie and Webbler than any observer could have predicted. Had Lonegan been the GOP nominee in 2009, a battle that Mulshine and many other ideological conservatives keep fighting 18 months after they lost it, Jon Corzine would still be governor. Much of the progress the GOP made this year, in New Jersey and nationally, would not have happened. More importantly, much of the progress New Jersey made this year would not have happened.
The conundrum of conservative ideologues is that they are more likely to be right, “standing on principle” and lose as they watch life get worse than they are to work with those they agree with on most issues and win.
It’s easier to be right and be a wind bag than it is to win and do the hard work of correcting decades of damage while in the minority. Rash says leadership is standing on principle. Yet, thanks in large measure Christie’s work this year, Democrats in Trenton are adopting smaller government principles. Which is more effective leadership? Going down in defeat while being right and then wind bagging or having your political adversaries shift their agenda? I’ll take the latter.
As we head into 2011 with the entire State Legislature up for reelection, ideologues have a critical choice to make. Based upon history one might expect them to undermine the progress by targeting otherwise “safe” Republican legislators in primaries with more ideologically pure opponents. All that would accomplish is to put safe seats at risk.
The smarter and more difficult choice would be to work with, rather than against, those they agree with most of the time to pick up Democratic seats in the legislature. The ideologues would serve New Jersey better by focusing their criticism on potentially vulnerable Democrats and shifting their focus, even if only temporarily, away from RINOs.
If the “hard right” can move public opinion in New Jersey to the right, as was done nationally this year, RINOs and Democrats will follow.
I bet if NJN produced a knockoff staring New Jerseyeans rather than New Yorkers that people would watch it and they could sell enough ads to cover their budget.
As of this writing, Santa Claus is in Albany, Austrailia. Next stop: Bunbury Austrailia, according to NORAD’s Official Santa Tracker and Google Earth.
NORAD has been tracking Santa since 1955 according to their website:
For more than 50 years, NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa’s flight.
The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.” The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.
In 1958, the governments of Canada and the United States created a bi-national air defense command for North America called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD, which then took on the tradition of tracking Santa.
Since that time, NORAD men, women, family and friends have selflessly volunteered their time to personally respond to phone calls and emails from children all around the world. In addition, we now track Santa using the internet. Millions of people who want to know Santa’s whereabouts now visit the NORAD Tracks Santa website.
Finally, media from all over the world rely on NORAD as a trusted source to provide updates on Santa’s journey.
