Hurricane Irene: Ocean City Must Be Evacuated by Tonight

With a powerful hurricane expected to deliver a direct blow to the Jersey Shore on Saturday and Sunday, Ocean City ordered a mandatory evacuation of all residents and visitors by Friday evening (Aug. 26).

The Ocean City Office of Emergency Management released the following special statement at 6:13 p.m.: 

As a result of the projected path of Hurricane Irene, a mandatory evacuation has been ordered for Ocean City and the entire County of Cape May. You are encouraged to make final preparations, secure your property and leave Ocean City as soon as possible, but no later than Friday evening.

If you have exhausted all options for obtaining transportation and lodging assistance from friends or family, please call 609-399-6111 during normal business hours on Friday. Check local television Channel 2 on the Comcast cable system or ocnj.us for continual updates as well as other information.

Ocean City's Emergency Management Coordinator Frank Donato issued the following information on the evacuation:

• Business owners and homeowners are encouraged to come and go freely on Friday to secure their properties as much as possible.
• There will be no restrictions on travel to or from Ocean City on Friday (Aug. 26). The causeways onto the island will be blocked incoming traffic on Saturday morning.
• All residents and visitors must be off the island by Friday evening.
• People who need transportation or a place to go should call 609-399-6111 on Friday.
• Ocean City High School will be used as a staging area for moving people who have no transportation.
• People will be transported to the Woodbine Developmental Center in Woodbine, which will serve as a shelter during the storm.
• The beaches are closed effective immediately, and surfing will be discouraged on Friday.
• The city will move police and fire equipment off the island and in no way be able to provide rescue services to anybody who willfully ignores the mandatory evacuation.
• Atlantic City Electric may choose to cut power to the island to eliminate the potential for damage and widespread fires during the storm.
• Anybody who wishes to volunteer helping evacuation efforts should call 609-399-6111 on Friday morning.

Donato said the last time the city ordered a mandatory evacuation was in 1985 for Hurricane Gloria.

"It's not something we take lightly," he said.

The city's evacuation deadline of Friday evening appeared to be in conflict with a Cape May County order issued four hours earlier that called for all residents of the county's barrier islands evacuate by end of Thursday (Aug. 25) and the rest of the county's residents to evacuate by 8 a.m. Friday. But Donato said those times were for the start of evacuations.

The county's Evacuation Map provides guidance for the best routes off the island.

The latest forecasts have Hurricane Irene passing directly over or just east of Ocean City and other New Jersey coastal towns -- with the center of the storm arriving about 1 p.m. Sunday, WMGM TV-40 meteorologist Dan Skeldon said in a Thursday night report.

Skeldon predicted the storm would arrive as a Category 2 storm (sustained winds between 96 and 110 miles per hour).

He said southern New Jersey can expect 10 or more inches of rain, winds of 75 mph or more in any scenario, severe tidal flooding and severe beach erosion.

With strong northeast winds coinciding with a Sunday morning new moon tide, the Cape May County coastline could see record high tides. High tide on Sunday morning is at 8:05 a.m. at the Ninth Street Bridge.

A three-week supply of plywood sheeting at Shoemaker Lumber was sold out in less than eight hours Thursday as residents took heed of dire warnings that Hurricane Irene had Ocean City on its hit list.

"We're out," said Harry Lord, a buyer with Shoemaker Lumber since 1978. "Wiped out."

The lumber yard had boarded up its own windows across the bottom of its building.

Lord estimates this is his 30th major storm warning in his 33 years at the lumber store, and says this one "could be the worst, from what we're hearing." The worst damage done at Shoemaker Lumber, which sits on low ground at 12th and West, occurred in December 1992. That nor'easter pushed 16 inches of water into the store, he said.

At 5 p.m. at Perry-Egan Chevrolet at 16th and Simpson, sales manager Barry Rothman said,  "We've just started moving cars off the island." This is Rothman's first evacuation; he said the cars are destined for safer haven in Marmora.

"We are out of D-size batteries, slim on milk and bread, and lots of bottled water is going out of here, too," said A.J. Miller, customer service representative at Super Fresh at Eighth Street and West Avenue.

The Internet Cafe at 13th Street and West Avenue installed flood panels across their windows.

The Sunoco station on Ninth Street ran out of gas by Thursday night.

Hotel visitors at the Port-o-Call on Thursday afternoon were being refunded for weekend room reservations as the hotel, like others, will be closed during the mandatory evacuation. Saturday-to-Saturday renters of vacation homes were being told they would not be able to pick up keys until Monday.