Trip Down 34th Street Shows Damage and Return to Normal

Joe Randazzo and his sons were removing the flood gates from the windows of their family pizzeria at the intersection of 34th Street and Asbury Avenue early on Sunday afternoon when they heard what Randazzo describes as a "bap, bap, bap, bap" sound. They looked across the street at the source and saw the corner of the roof at Pino's Grille lifting up.

"It was a little windy," Randazzo says. "Then there was one gust and it peeled up in one piece, it went about 40 feet in the air, and it flew off and hit the pole in the alley. It came off in one piece. I never saw anything like it."

The entire episode lasted five to 10 seconds, says Jack Randazzo, 26. He, his father, his 23-year-old brother Joe and two of Joe's friends shook off what Jack calls "shock" and quickly sought shelter inside Randazzo's. But the wind was blowing so hard out of the southwest at that point, the elder Randazzo says, that three grown men struggled to pull shut the double front doors to the pizzeria.

The sudden gusts came at the tail end of Hurricane Irene, long after many had assumed the storm had passed.

On Monday, the roof was in the parking lot behind Pino's, a tangled mass of aluminum and shingles. The restaurant's chef was removing duct tape from windows, hoping to be back in business -- after three days closed -- for dinner at 5 p.m.

Business was picking up at Ocean City Realty, too, where incoming renters were calling for updates on when they could begin their vacations and owners were calling to check on their properties.

"We've got check-ins on Monday, which is unusual," says Lori Lawrence, a bookkeeper with the office for five years. "We're in really good shape. There's little damage on the island and no severe beach erosion."

Most renters are facing an abbreviated vacation due to the mandatory evacuation necessitated by Hurricane Irene, Lawrence says, and the majority have been "pretty darn nice" about the inconvenience.

"Thank goodness this happened at the tail end of summer," she says. "If it had been the last two weeks of July or the first two weeks of August, it would have been a much bigger problem."

Most rental contracts have clauses that protect property owners from "acts of God" that prevent renters from completing rental terms. But there's some possibility that individual owners will consider prorating contracts for their tenants.

A few doors to the west of Ocean City Realty, Bank of America was open although, at 10:30 a.m., its windows were still boarded up and a rain gutter hung off the edge of the drive-through.

Across 34th Street at Acme, visitors and homeowners began stocking up on essentials. The supermarket, which had closed at 5 p.m. Sunday, was back to regular business hours Monday.

At the end of 34th Street, the ocean went unguarded as the Ocean City Beach Patrol continued to return its equipment to beaches throughout the island. All normally guarded beaches will be open on Tuesday.