Outages, but area appears to escape worse

Somewhat to their surprise and much to their relief, South Jersey communities inland awoke Tuesday to find they were relatively unscathed from Sandy.

There were downed trees and power outages all over, but early assessments found nothing much worse, though the lingering loss of power was beginning to try some residents' patience by Tuesday afternoon.

Burlington County is dispatching crews and emergency equipment to neighboring Ocean and Atlantic Counties, which were hit a lot harder, Ralph Shrom, the county spokesman, said Tuesday.

Only 80 people and 20 pets went into Burlington County's emergency shelters, freeing up capacity for as many as 700 displaced persons from the nearby coastal counties, he said.

There were about 50 road closures throughout Burlington County, he said. Shrom said the county highway department was working with the utility companies to get streets and roads cleared, including parts of Routes 38 and 541.

He did strike a cautionary note about later: "We don't have major flooding, but we are still concerned about the high tides, especially tomorrow evening," he said.

And Freeholder Director Bruce Garganio was meeting with officials at Viking Yacht to assess storm damage there. The Bass River business employs 2,000 workers.

Ruth Rogers, 73, of Moorestown, was surprised at how much she missed electricity when her power went off at 4 p.m. Monday. It has stayed off all day so far Tuesday.

"I don't know what's going on in the world. I don't have TV or radio and don't know what happened in Atlantic City," the Burlington County resident said.

Dinner was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and during the night, she said, she also used several blankets to keep warm.

"I read with a flashlight and then just went to bed at 6:45," she said, as she surveyed downed wires on Chester Avenue."

A PSEG worker said he had been asked "a million times today" when the power will be restored. He shrugged and looked over a tangle of downed wires.

Burlington County public works and emergency crews are working with PSEG and Atlantic Electric to restore power to more than 75,000 county residents.

In Camden County, more than 27,000 people are without power as of Tuesday afternoon. PSE&G crews are out assessing damage but are unable to provide a time line for when residents will have power back, PSE&G spokeswoman Deann Muzikar said.

Haddonfield Schools will remain closed on Halloween, according to an e-mail sent to parents this afternoon citing "student safety issues."

Haddonfield High School lost power during the storm. District officials decided to close the borough's three elementary schools and one middle school in response to downed wires "in the pathways of where students walk to school."

District officials have not said when the days will be made up. Haddonfield students already have all of next week off as a "fall break" due to regularly scheduled teacher development days and the NJEA convention.

Camden County Freeholder Ian Leonard has been out with county parks and public works crews assessing damage and helping move trees and branches out of roadways.

Damage across the county is not as bad as was anticipated, Leonard said. The Cooper River and the Delaware River both flooded but quickly receded and did not cause too much damage. Last year, Hurricane Irene was "much worse with flooding," Leonard said, but Sandy had stronger winds and therefore has left a messier cleanup.

About 100 trees have been reported to be down throughout the county.

Camden City Mayor Dana L. Redd has issued a mandatory 6 p.m. curfew for everyone under 18 years old.

Three community centers - Malandra Hall, Isabel Miller, and North Camden - will remain open Tuesday night and possibly for several days, depending on the community's needs, said city spokesman Robert Corrales.

Perhaps typical of the anxieties caused by Sandy was the experience of another Moorestown woman and her daughter and grandson, who were forced to leave their home on Highland Avenue after a tree fell.

The falling tree knocked down power lines, exploded a transformer, and pierced the wall of an upstairs room.

"We heard an explosion outside" about 5 p.m. Monday, said Jacquelyn Page. She said her mother, 93-year-old Rusty Sprinkle, let out a scream and said "'A tree's hit the house,' and then I started screaming because my son was upstairs."

Her 28-year-old son Scott, called out that he was OK, she said.

He said he had been sitting in a chair in his room when the tree hit the roof and pierced the wall. He dived from his chair, Page said, and when he looked up there was a two-and-a-half foot limb jutting "like a needle" into the room.

Emergency crews escorted them from the house, which had lost power.

The family spent the night in a hotel and returned Tuesday morning.

Ralph Sitley, of 326 Westend Avenue in Haddonfield, and others had somewhat similar tales to tell Tuesday:

Sitley said he was lucky when a towering oak went down beside his home, scraping a front corner but causing little damage.

"We're used to it," he said while snapping pictures and recalling an oak that fell last year in front of his home.

Around the corner, a second tree clobbered a car in a driveway on Woodland Avenue. At the end of Woodland, at Peyton, another oak crashed onto two cars owned by the Mangelli family.

"It was a huge crack and then a thud," said Jennifer Mangelli, who had just put her three young children to bed.

At 402 Elm Street, Stephen Castellano said he woke up after 11 p.m. to his dog barking, thinking the worst of the storm passed an hour earlier.

"When it got calm, I thought we were safe," Castellano said. "First I heard the dog barking and then I heard the slam."

The oak came down over his 15-year-old daughter's bedroom, branches poking through the roof in at least two spots.

"It scared all of us," Castellano said, waiting for emergency services to remove the tree. After the tree fell, he and his wife and daughter slept in the rear den.

Like many, Lumberton residents were prepared for the worst. After major flooding in 2004, 2007, and 2011, people living near the South Branch tributary of Rancocas Creek weren't taking any chances.

They built walls of sandbags and bales of hay around their homes - and moved personal belongings from basements to higher floors.

So when they awoke Tuesday to find only their yards flooded and Sandy gone, they were relieved.

"We were as ready as we could be," said Don Ferrell, 42, who lives on Point Street and owns Custom Craft Concrete. "We usually get flooded but we lucked out this time."

The creek had overflowed its banks, passing over his dock and the line of hay bales he put out, but it never passed the gazebo behind his house - and didn't get near the sandbags around his basement door and windows. In past floods, the waters had gotten up to the middle of the gazebo's screen door and reached his house.

"This is nothing," said Ferrell as he looked down the street at his father Deke Farrell's home, which was high and dry but isolated by water, which surrounded it like a moat. "I'm tickled pink.

"The power never even went off," he said. "We dodged a big bullet."

The yards of other residents also were flooded. A children's play set was surrounded by water behind one house on Church Street.

At the nearby Lumberton firehouse on Main Street, Chief Jim Pearson was pleased. He had the local election board move voting machines from the building in anticipation of possible flooding and firefighters moved equipment and kitchenware up high on Sunday - just in case. The firehouse had been flooded before.

Outside the station, a sign read: "Go Away Sandy."

"We had trees down on the roadways and cars - but no flooding issues," Pearson said Tuesday.

In neighboring Mount Holly, a towering tree that once stood in front of the Historic Burlington County Court House on High Street was snapped by the high winds and fell next to the building, narrowly missing it. The courthouse was built in 1796 and modeled after Congress Hall in Philadelphia.

County workers Tuesday used chainsaws to cut up the venerable tree.

Others trees also came down around Mount Holly, but residents were breathing a sigh of relief. Many had also seen devastating flooding events. On Tuesday, they were happy to be outside raking and using blowers to corral leaves and twigs that had come down during Sandy.

"It could have been a lot worse," said one resident as he cleaned up in front of his house.