By Muriel J. Smith
It depends on where you live, what you do, how you heat, and how critical your needs are as to how local residents are bearing up under the frigid and snow conditions that have essentially shut down many government offices, schools and programs.
But in the end, it’s attitude and acceptance that keep tempers from flaring and homeowners diligent about the impact of winter.
Monmouth County residents cracked open the backdoor on Tuesday morning and measured snowfall accumulations of three inches and as much as seven, as in parts of Middletown.
Despite the slush, some outdoor enthusiasts were undeterred and jogged along the boardwalk, as did David DeMonico of the Jersey Shore Running Club.
For Sean Murray of Leonardo, it’s all about realizing that problems like frozen pipes “are just part of the territory” when you love where you live. The Murrays have a century year old home with a northwest side that bears the brunt of high winds and blowing snow. With the second floor bathroom on that side of the house, it came as no surprise that frozen pipes could become an issue. The answer, Murray said, “is taking preventive measures.”
Leaving water taps open a slight degree to ensure running water is the first means most people with older homes or homes with water pipes in crawl spaces beneath the house put into effect. At the Murray home, they have the good fortune of having the second floor bath just above the kitchen. “So by keeping the kitchen a little warmed, and knowing that heat rises, we have another means of keeping pipes from freezing.” Undaunted by the frigid temperatures, Murray laughed and admitted, “I’ve learned a lot living in an older home over the past ten years. But I can tell you one thing…as long as you accept its part of the territory, it’s absolutely worth whatever inconvenience to live where we live.”
Those with oil heat have their own problems when temperatures drop lower and stay longer than anticipated. When supplies run low, customers get on the phone with their fuel oil supplier to ensure their tanks are full. That’s apparently what has happened this week for Lawes Coal and Fuel Oil Company in Shrewsbury. Very polite, courteous and busy members of the office work force at the Shrewsbury office declined to answer any questions for a story, preferring to donate their time and telephone lines to customers calling in. “That should give you an idea of how busy we really are,” one spokesman at Lawes said. Although there were no complaints from the company, a family owned business that has been in Monmouth County since 1926, residents should ensure walkways are cleared and shoveled from the street to the fuel tank fills location so drivers can make the deliveries and hasten to the next caller.
For Jersey Central Power & Light Company, heavy snow sometimes means downed wires and no electricity to homes, but that has not been the case so far in the Two River area. The utility maintains a website updated every 15 minutes which showed no outages in the area, while there were two smaller outages in western Monmouth County and Point Pleasant. Officials recommend callers with outages contact their automated line at 888-544-2877 to report, since the company might not always be immediately aware of a limited outage. The automated line picks up the caller’s phone number and can relate it to a customer’s address without the need for human intervention on the phone, reason enough for a user to ensure his own records, including a cell phone number, are up to date.
Residents are also advised to only report downed wires they actually see, rather than what they suspect. Treatment of a downed wire, for safety purposes, means a Hazard responder crew is sent to the scene to ensure safety before advising the repair team of the address. Falling in a downed wire without seeing it can only delay response to that caller and others in the queue.
At Little Silver Borough Hall, the staff was up and running before 10 a.m., fielding all calls and handling routine business. Administrator Kim Jungfer said she came at the usual 8 a.m. start of the day, “because I live close and could do it, to ensure we could answer the phones and take care of business.” The borough had a couple of small water pipe issues, she said, but praised the pro-active work of the Public Works Department that kept those problems at a minimum. “We raised the temperatures in some of the building that aren’t used on a daily basis, “ she said, “knowing that the higher cost of heating them would still be far more beneficial than frozen pipes and subsequent repairs.”
On the roadways, where most of us will have to eventually wind up, whether to work, school or shop and hope to travel safely, some municipalities have partnered with county government to use what the county uses to melt ice and snow.
Since 2008, Monmouth County Public Works has been using a liquid brine solution to treat the approximately 1,000 miles of county roadways. Since 2009 the county government has offered to sell to towns and now 36 communities are using this shared service, said Freeholder Thomas Arnone. Along with saving money given the county buys the solution in large quantities, “The other bonus is that these substances are less harmful to the environment and more effective in colder temperatures,” Arnone said.
In the Two-River area Atlantic Highlands, Eatontown, Fair Haven, Highlands, Little Silver, Monmouth Beach, Oceanport, Red Bank, Red Bank, Rumson, Shrewsbury Borough, Shrewsbury Township and West Long Branch, according to Laura Kirkpatrick, the county director of public information and tourism.
As tough as the weather has been, take heart and remember it’s a little more than a month to spring. But on the glass is half empty side of the argument that means there is still more than a month left in winter and all that can bring.
