10 Years Since Sandy: Warren Emerges Better Prepared For Any Emergency

WARREN, NJ — For residents in Warren Township, the memories of Superstorm Sandy 10 years ago are ones that will never be forgotten.

The storm knocked out powerlines and trees bringing 16 days of darkness to the township before power could be fully restored. Many had trees take out their homes or vehicles.

Mayor Victor Sordillo lost power for 5 days and lost his truck and a car.

"A branch went through my wife's new car and ripped the driver's seat in half," said Sordillo.

Jim Roberts, a resident of Flintlock Drive, said he saw two homes destroyed by toppled trees on Red Hill Road.

Roberts also lost about 20 trees in his backyard.

"Thankfully they all blew away from our house. There was no real damage to our house but we had to run a portable generator for about 2 weeks after. One day had to drive to Pennsylvania to find an open gas station," said Roberts.

"It was probably the most stressful of all of the times since I have been in office," said Sordillo, who is currently serving his 22nd year in office.

The stress centered around the power outage as very few people had generators back then.

"The worst part of the whole thing was to lose power and have people in need of power for life support and people in need of power to keep food fresh, to stay warm," said Sordillo. "You don't realize how quickly things turn primitive."

Since the storm, Office of Emergency Management Coordinator Rob Ferrero says Warren Township has come a long way in the past 10 years.

"Now we are pretty much prepared for pretty much anything," said Ferrero. "We are self-sufficient. Experts at handling storms."

Warren has since worked with both PSE&G and JCP&L to trim trees to avoid potential problems in the future such as the hurdles they faced with Sandy.

"Since Sandy, we have relationships with the utility companies - direct lines to them that we didn't have when Sandy came," said Ferrero.

Additionally, Sordillo said the township worked with Rutgers University to develop an app with students so residents could identify locations and submit to problems they saw in relation to trees down or outages in their area.

"We have over 100 miles of roadway. This allowed neighbors to add to the database with powerline problems since it was hard to hit all the areas that needed attention," said Sordillo.

Sordillo added that the township still has its own central dispatch.

"Most towns go to Somerset County and there have been certain circumstances where they go to the wrong town. A lot of horror stories," said Sordillo. "In Warren there is still someone here 24 hours, 7 days a week. That may sound minimal but when an emergency is happened you want someone answering the call."

Overall, Sordillo said the true story of Sandy was "neighbors helping neighbors."

"People helping people get food, get gas. One guy sent me pictures of all the neighbors getting together to pick up debris and using chainsaws to clear the roadways," said Sordillo.

"What we saw was that for 16 days, it's incredible how people come together and help each other. We have something special and unique and help each other out over any other community," said Ferrero. "We had the longest power outage in the area. But the least amount of complaints. People were OK without power because they had support."

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