By MADDY VITALE
Ocean City officials planned for a major storm. And when the blizzard hit Friday night, a city team worked around the clock to keep up with the snowfall and clear the streets.
By Saturday afternoon, roads were passable, and by Sunday, many of them were cleared. More than 15 inches of snow made Ocean City the top town in Cape May County for snowfall. The National Weather Service put the total at 15.5 inches.
Powerful wind gusts of near 50 mph caused snowdrifts. The blizzard, like the Jan. 3 storm, which dumped 14 inches on the resort town, left minimal to no damage, officials said, in part, because the city had a plan in place.
“I’m thankful for this community and for all our city team members,” Mayor Jay Gillian said Monday. “We were prepared, and everybody has worked extremely hard for these past few days.”
On Monday, the main streets appeared largely clear of snow. Sidewalks along the Asbury Avenue downtown shopping district also were clear.
Some people were shoveling out their driveways, while others still had snow piled up to the middle of their vehicles that lined some of the roads, including Bay Avenue, Atlantic Avenue and Ocean Avenue.
After the plowing was all but finished, the next monumental task for the city’s Department of Public Works crews was to put the snow somewhere.
And that is just what they were doing Monday.
Crews were removing the mounds of plowed snow and piling them at the ends of the city-owned parking lots.
“Snow-clearing operations continued on Monday, primarily with trucking piles of snow to the municipal parking lot at Fifth Street,” city spokesman Doug Bergen said. “With warmer weather and rain in the forecast for later in the week, we should get an assist from Mother Nature.”
In addition to the Fifth Street Municipal Parking lot, crews were moving snow to the ends of the Ninth Street parking lots.
Ocean City has about 110 miles of roadway. The removal of snow to the city parking lots is not something new, Bergen said.
“Ocean City’s Public Works team is fortunate to have many members with a lot of experience in dealing with snowstorms, and the division has developed standard operating procedures for these types of emergency responses,” he said.
