Asbury Mayor: City was calm with curfew, election day a priority
Says no major law enforcement incidents during outage
The city-wide 7 p.m. curfew instituted when Hurricane Sandy hit Asbury Park kept the city calm, and no major law enforcement incidents were reported during the power outage, according to Mayor Ed Johnson [above].
The curfew remains in effect until lifted by the city’s Office of Emergency Management, Johnson said. City officials are monitoring the power situation to determine when to end the curfew.
“The curfew went extremely well,” Johnson said. “I don’t think there were any major incidents. It was calm. It gave people confidence. We were the first to institute a curfew in the county.”
Johnson said city officials are also focusing on Tuesday’s election. He said that the location of the polling places had to be certified by 1 p.m. today.
“We’re also making sure that people in shelters can return to vote,” Johnson said.
As for power, it was first restored in the western section of the city on Springwood and Ridge aves, Johnson said. Parts of Asbury Ave. west of the railroad tracks have power, as do many parts of Main Street. He also said that much of the east side has power.
Asbury’s power grid is split up in many different directions, which is why the power restoration can be in various locations, Johnson said. He’s hoping all power in the city can be restored by the end of the weekend.
Preoccupied with the situation in Asbury Park, Johnson said he just started to see reports of the devastating damage elsewhere on the coast, such as in Belmar and Seaside Heights.
“I’ve been oblivious to outside news for a couple days,” he said. “While Asbury took a beating, it was nowhere near as severe as other places, like Belmar. Your heart just goes out to those places. It looks like the Jersey Shore now consists of Asbury Park and then the next stop is Atlantic City.”
[The Sun previously reported that the damage to the Asbury boardwalk is moderate, with the pavilions appearing structurally intact although there was significant internal damage. Convention Hall did not appear to suffer any serious damage. Click here for the Sun coverage and here for a photo album taken Wednesday of the boardwalk damage from the Sun’s Facebook page.]
There was one silver lining to the storm, Johnson said.
“We’ve had people who’ve come to council meetings to knock heads some times, but we’ve all gotten together working on the same page. This disaster really showed us what matters the most — our one city as a whole,” he said.
[Posted 1:25 p.m. on Saturday.]
