By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Ever since it was launched in 2019, the “Flood Cam” has attracted thousands of views from residents and visitors who use it during storms to keep an eye on one of Sea Isle City’s most flood-prone areas of town.
The web-based camera normally livestreams images on a 24-hour basis of the low-lying intersection of 40th Street and Central Avenue, which serves as an early indicator of rising floodwater throughout Sea Isle.
However, the flood cam has been unavailable for about two months because the New Jersey Coastal Coalition, the nonprofit group that operates it, has been building a new website from scratch.
Viewers are greeted with a blank page and the words “No Results Found” when they try to click on the camera through a link on Sea Isle’s websites at seaislecitynj.us or visitsicnj.com.
Sea Isle has included a note on visitsicnj.com telling the public that the webcam will be reactivated by the New Jersey Coastal Coalition in the “near future.”
Tom Quirk, executive director of the Coastal Coalition, explained that his organization is working with its website vendor to get the camera back online as soon as possible.
The coalition expects that its new website will be ready in early January, but is trying to make the flood cam available to the public even sooner than that, if possible, Quirk said in an interview Wednesday.
“I know that it has received thousands and thousands and thousands of hits. I know that whenever there’s a storm, traffic to our website goes through the roof,” he said of the flood cam’s popularity.
The New Jersey Coastal Coalition’s former website – along with the flood cam – was taken down in November, when the website vendor began building the new site, Quirk said.
Neil Byrne, Sea Isle’s construction official and floodplain manager, stressed that the flood cam is not operated by the city. He said Sea Isle officials are anxiously waiting for the Coastal Coalition to bring the camera back online through its new website.
“The plan is to get it back up shortly. We realize that it is an important and used asset on the city website,” Byrne said of people watching the flood cam.
In 2019, the Coastal Coalition installed the camera on Sea Isle’s Public Works building at 40th Street and Central Avenue to livestream images on a 24-hour basis.
The intersection of 40th and Central was chosen because that is where floodwater often begins in Sea Isle during coastal storms. Byrne has described the intersection as a “barometer” for flooding throughout the island.
When it is operating, the camera allows residents and visitors to watch flooding in real time, giving them a chance to move their cars to safety and take other steps to protect their property before it’s too late.
“It is one of the means we use to get the message out about flooding,” Byrne said of the city’s storm alert system.
The livestream broadcast in Sea Isle was part of a pilot program that may eventually include more flood cameras in other Jersey Shore towns that are members of the coastal coalition.
The New Jersey Coastal Coalition began with 21 communities that joined together in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 to look for new ways to protect homeowners from flooding. The nonprofit organization has since grown to 39 member communities in Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean counties.
Sea Isle was selected as the location for the first flood camera because of its strong support for the coalition over the years.
The camera was paid for by a $5,000 donation to the Coastal Coalition by OceanFirst Bank. There was no cost to taxpayers, Quirk said.
