By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
As drenching rain soaked the Jersey Shore on Wednesday, Sea Isle City Emergency Management Coordinator Mike Jargowsky wryly observed, “If you like snow, this isn’t your storm.”
While parts of central and northern New Jersey were blanketed with snow from a powerful nor’easter sweeping up the East Coast, the southern part of the state and the shore dealt with heavy rain and gusting winds reaching 60 mph.
“It’s just going to be a rain event for us,” Jargowsky said.
The combination of so much rain and strong winds prompted the National Weather Service to issue a Coastal Flood Warning through 3 p.m. Thursday. A Coastal Flood Warning means that moderate or major tidal flooding is occurring or imminent.
Jargowsky said Sea Isle should expect moderate flooding when high tide arrives around 10 a.m. Thursday. However, the winds are expected to shift from the northeast to the west Thursday to help make the flooding less serious, he noted.
“With the winds turning from the northeast to the west, hopefully it will knock it down. But like with everything else, it’s a guessing game,” Jargowsky said of the flooding.
Throughout Wednesday afternoon and evening, torrential rain fell continuously from ominous gray skies. Temperatures hovering in the 40s made it too warm for all the rain at the shore to turn into snow.
Flags and Christmas decorations whipped in the wind. In a few places in town, opportunistic seagulls hunted for a meal from trash cans blown over by heavy gusts. The National Weather Service issued a High Wind Warning through 1 a.m. Thursday.
With virtually everyone hunkered down inside, Sea Isle’s beaches and Promenade were all but deserted. The downtown streets were quiet, except for mail carriers and package delivery employees making their rounds.
Braving the rain and high winds, Sea Isle residents Michelle Rebock and her daughter, Morgan, ventured outside to get their hair done at Bella Roots Salon on Landis Avenue.
“We’re just getting our hair cut. We’re not getting it blown out,” Rebock said, noting that the soggy weather would have probably ruined their hair styles.
Rebock pointed out that the wind was so strong that it was creating ripples in the pools of water running along the gutters.
“You can really see it starting to pick up now,” she said of the wind and rain. “I would like to see snow. We never see snow down here.”
Morgan Rebock, a sophomore at Ocean City High School, said she will have a virtual school day on Thursday because of the flooding expected at the shore.
“It’s not the nicest of days,” Morgan said as she prepared to duck inside the salon with her mother.
