Police Chief: "Hope We Don't Have Another One Anytime Soon"

Hurricane Irene may not have hit Gloucester Township with quite the amount of rain or heavy wind forecasters had predicted, but that doesn't mean anyone is hoping a similar storm hits our area again in the near future.

"I certainly hope we don't have another one anytime soon," Gloucester Township Police Chief W. Harry Earle said Monday afternoon.

Monday was clean-up day for many in the township—time to break out the chainsaws to take care of the downed trees and limbs that fell during the hurricane.

The township Department of Public Works (DPW) put three brush trucks on the road Monday—up from the usual two—to accommodate an anticipated higher-than-normal volume. There will likely be three trucks on the road for sometime, officials said.

DPW is reminding residents that brush will still be picked up curbside on regular recycling days on an every-other-week basis—there was debris township-wide, after all—but must be gathered in bundles of roughly 50 pounds or less and 4 feet or less.

Residents can call DPW at 856-228-3144 ext. 0 with any questions about brush pick-up or to schedule pick-up of larger trees and stumps, or visit the DPW page on the township website.

While the Category 1 hurricane did not result in any serious injuries in the township, there were a few instances of significant property damage.

Two township homes—one on the 600 block of South Venetia Avenue in Blackwood, the other on Grant Drive in Laurel Springs—were deemed uninhabitable and two motorists found their vehicles stuck in flood waters as the storm ripped through southern New Jersey, police said.

Police brass and other officials were thankful the township did not experience the massive power outages that other parts of New Jersey and the East Coast did at the hands of Irene.

"I think we have been very fortunate with this storm. We have several roadways that are still flooded out, but that seems to be receding," Mayor David Mayer said Sunday morning. "I think for the most part everyone has power in our town and accessibility to the major roadways."

PSE&G and Atlantic City Electric—the two companies that provide electricity to township homes and businesses—had more than 300,000 and 100,000 customers, respectively, without power as of Sunday at 11 p.m.

The lack of widespread power failure here allowed the police department's scheduled on-duty officers to respond to more than 160 emergency calls it received without having to call in many of the off-duty officers put on alert as the hurricane approached, Earle said.

While the traffic signal at Berlin Cross Keys Road and the Atlantic City Expressway did fail and require direction by officers until about 6 p.m. Sunday, according to police, there really weren't any incidents that required what would be considered long-term police activity.

Most roadways were passable for vehicles by Sunday afternoon and, by all acccounts, most of them were passable by rush hour Monday morning.

Police and emergency officials here will be monitoring and evaluating how their brethren reacted in areas that were particularly hard hit by the hurricane, according to Earle, to see what worked and what didn't.

"Even though we didn't get it that bad, let's see how agencies reacted where they did get it bad," he said.

As far as the amount of time that went into preparing late last week and Saturday for what amounted locally, for the most part, to a dud of a storm, Earle has no regrets.

"It's definitely better to be safe than sorry," he said.