By MADDY VITALE
Sea Isle’s flood cam installed at 40th and Central has given visitors and residents a real time view of the weather since it was installed last May.
And with two recent tropical storms, the web cam is and has been very beneficial, officials said Monday.
When storms occur, 40th and Central is usually one of the first areas in town to flood.
As an early indicator of storm effects citywide, the web camera has given people and opportunity to keep an eye on flooding.
“Obviously one of the benefits is we took a flood prone intersection in the downtown and given people an opportunity to view it any moment,” explained Sea Isle City Public Information Officer Katherine Custer. “When flooding starts on the island that intersection is among the first on the island to get the water.”
The city was selected by the New Jersey Coastal Coalition to receive the first web cam. The camera was funded by a $5,000 grant by the OceanFirst Bank through the Coastal Coalition.
The web cam livestreams images on a 24-hour basis at https://www.njcoastalcoalition.com/sea-isle-city-web-cam.
Custer pointed to one of the reasons the city was selected as the pilot program for the web cam.
“Sea Isle has been proactive in continually trying to mitigate the flooding problem that affects the entire Jersey Coast,” she noted.
In addition to the web cam being installed in 2019, the city put in a new pumping station to improve drainage and also installed 78 flashing road signs across town to warn motorists of flooding.
Tom Quirk, the Coastal Coalition’s executive director, said he did not have numbers of web cam view for Sea Isle, but he had many anecdotal stories of people thanking the coalition for providing the “bird’s eye view” of flooding in the city.
“I can tell you I have gotten emails from people thanking us,” Quirk said. “A lot of visitors come from Philadelphia and other areas. They don’t necessarily know what areas flood. The idea of the web cam is it is available for people to view.”
Quirk called Sea Isle, “one of the leaders in the state and even in the country when it comes to flooding mitigation.”
The coalition took shape after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Sea Isle City was among the first communities to partner with the coalition.
“Sea Isle is an unquestioned leader in the state,” he said of the city’s flood mitigation efforts. “That can only be attributed to the leadership of Sea Isle Mayor Leonard Desiderio.”
Quirk added that in addition to Desiderio, Neil Byrne, the city’s floodplain manager and construction official, and Custer have been pleasures to work with. “They make it easy. They are a joy,” he said.
Quirk said that non-partisan partnership between the coalition and municipalities such as Sea Isle is what it takes to improve flood mitigation at the shore.
“That is what we try to accomplish. We work together in a non-partisan way to inform the public of the challenges of flooding,” he said. “The Jersey Shore is wonderful 362 days of year. But the three or four days a year, Mother Nature turns a little bit nasty. She always wins. Our organization works with municipalities. We have to be smart.”
The coalition wants to add similar web cameras in other shore communities that are vulnerable to flooding.
“We are now going after a grant to put other web cams in. The goal is to put in four or five in each municipality. It is a priority item for us,” Quirk added “We need to inform the public of their options. Having a camera where you can see flooding in real time is priceless.”
