In Cape May County, a dispiriting and expensive cleanup

WEST WILDWOOD, N.J. - On the way to the Jersey Shore, they say, the stress just melts away.

They must not have seen Andrew Runowski spraying the mud off the bicycles parked in his West Wildwood driveway Monday afternoon. Runowski, 32, had awakened early amid the mounds of snow in South Philly and had driven here expecting the worst.

Floodwaters from Winter Storm Jonas blew through the garage door of his elevated home near the bay in this Cape May County borough, and everything was wet and doused in brown, the salty water already eating its way through important things.

"We were actually pretty lucky compared to some others," Runowski said.

A few hours earlier, Gov. Christie had rebuffed criticism that he took the storm lightly. He flat-out denied it and accused a reporter of making the criticism up.

"There is no residual damage, there is no residual flooding damage," Christie said.

Christie was in New Hampshire when he said that, back on the campaign trail.

Jim Heuser, a Kensington native, didn't use the phrase "residual damage," but that's exactly what he was dealing with at his home on New York Avenue in North Wildwood. He was having trouble dealing with it at all.

"I kind of just wish I had a bomb," said Heuser, 61.

Water was in Heuser's air conditioners, the coffee pot, his Ethan Allen cabinet, and just about everything else that was below his hip.

"The hot-water heater is done. The heater is done. The dryer won't start up. It's total devastation," he said.

Christie must have had bad intel, he said.

"I really don't know what the hell he was talking about," Heuser said. "He should come down here and help me clean up."

Heuser said an insurance adjuster estimated the damage at $50,000.

Around 4:30 p.m., Christie's administration sent out a statement saying he had dispatched teams to Cape May, Atlantic, Ocean, and Cumberland Counties to assess damage. A spokesman said Christie's remarks had been taken out of context Monday morning.

Next door to Heuser's house, at Casey's on Third, bar owners Tom and Kevin Casey already had prepared their place for water after getting flooded during Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy. They replaced hardwood floors with tiles and took wood paneling off the walls. Still, their stage will have to go, and they wondered how many big storms the barrier islands could take.

Jonas was worse than both previous storms, the Northeast Philly natives said.

"These are supposed to be once-every-hundred-year storms and we've had three in just a couple of years," Kevin Casey said.

People in North and West Wildwood said the floodwaters were higher than from Sandy and certainly more frigid.

"There were icebergs floating down the street," Tom Casey said with a laugh.

In West Wildwood, John Blaetz had to wade through the icy water to move his car. Inside his garage, everything was coated with mud, including all the antiques and collectibles that he and his wife, Dolores, had amassed.

Now it was mostly junk they'd have to haul to the curb.

"This was the worst I'd ever seen," he said.

narkj@phillynews.com

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On Twitter: @JasonNark