A growing array of video cameras shows the surf, beaches, boardwalk and roads in Ocean City, and they provide live images of just about any part of the town.
The cams offer vital information on weather and surf conditions on a barrier island that has a climate of its own. They deliver video across the Internet in real time to homes outside Ocean City — where the climate might be dramatically different, even short distances away from the ocean.
Surfers have long relied on the cams to check wave conditions, but they now attract an audience of just about anybody interested in seeing Ocean City from afar.
At The Shore works with Pro Video Engineering of Northfield and spends about $5,000 in setup on each cam, according to owner Jim Ginn. He said he's invested tens of thousands of dollars in the cams, which are free for anybody to view.
Why?
"Because people want to see," Ginn said. "If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million."
He said the highest traffic to his cams comes not during beautiful summer weather but during any sort of bad-weather event.
Ginn said he's looking to add cams in Avalon, Atlantic City, Long Beach Island and then move south to Delaware. His cams and a set of others operated or sponsored by Ocean City surf shops cover a wide range of views of the island. Check them out here:
