By Donald Wittkowski
One of the favorite traditions during Sea Isle City’s holiday parades is for marchers to toss candy to the spectators lining the sidewalks.
Brian Teefy loves the tradition, but he also has terrifying thoughts of a child darting out into the street to grab some candy and being struck by a fire engine, a float or some other vehicle in the parade.
“God forbid if one of the kids ran out for candy and fell,” he said.
Determined to prevent such a tragedy from happening, Teefy, Sea Isle’s traffic maintenance supervisor, got together with two other workers in his department, Matt Steelman and Jimmy Lane, to devise a simple, yet ingenious safety system to protect parade spectators.
Consisting of a series of weighted safety cones and strands of rope, the unobtrusive barrier will run along the entire parade route to keep spectators – especially the children – on the sidewalks instead of having them on the street. Spectators, though, will still have great views of the parades.
“The kids will sit on the sidewalk behind the ropes and enjoy the parade,” Police Chief Tom McQuillen said.
The safety system will make its debut Friday night during Sea Isle’s annual Halloween Parade, which traditionally attracts thousands of spectators. The ropes and 36-inch-high cones will line the entire parade route along Landis Avenue from 47th Street to John F. Kennedy Boulevard, six blocks in all.
“This is a really good idea. It’s great, because the parents will be able to tell their kids, ‘Don’t go past the rope,’” Mayor Leonard Desiderio said Tuesday while Teefy and McQuillen showed him how the restraints will work.
At its Oct. 9 meeting, City Council approved a resolution authorizing nearly $9,300 in funding to buy the 250 plastic cones, the 16-pound weights and the 3,000 linear feet of rope that were needed.
Teefy noted that his inspiration for the safety system was a similar rope barrier used by Ocean City for its parades. He saw it in action during Ocean City’s 2017 Halloween Parade.
McQuillen and Teefy said Sea Isle has never had a spectator hit by a vehicle during a parade. The new barrier is designed to keep that safety record intact, they stressed.
“You see those parades, and they get very crowded. This is just another way to keep everybody safe, so there will never be an accident,” McQuillen said.
Teefy explained that he and fellow traffic maintenance workers Steelman and Lane “all put our heads together” to create the safety system. Then they approached McQuillen.
“When I took the idea to Chief McQuillen, it was ‘Bam!’’’ Teefy recalled of McQuillen’s enthusiastic reaction. “The wheels started turning and now we’re here today.”
McQuillen said the restraint system is part of the city’s broader efforts to improve public safety. Not only will the new system be used during parades, but it will also protect city workers while they are doing road or maintenance projects close to traffic.
McQuillen and the mayor also believe that the ropes and cones could be used to block off flooded areas in town, keeping cars and trucks from driving into dangerous stormwater.
“This creates a natural barrier,” McQuillen said.
