By TIM KELLY and MADDY VITALE
From biking to paddleboarding, people took advantage of Ocean City.
The only problem was that bikers were sharing flooded streets with paddleboarders, as rains pelted the island and much of South Jersey when Tropical Storm Fay drew nearer to the coast.
By 10 a.m. on Friday, three inches of rain had fallen, according to the National Weather Service. The rains continued into the afternoon.
By mid-afternoon floodwaters had receded on most streets, although some of the harder-hit areas were still impassable.
Brian DiCicco, a vacationer from Springfield, Pa., skipped a sponge ball across 33rd Street to his son, Vincent, as the water rose to his knees.
He declined a photo in mock horror.
“My wife would be so mad if she saw us doing this,” DiCicco said with a laugh.
The only vehicle on 33rd Street between Simpson and West avenues was a large pickup truck. Floodwaters licked at the bottom of the vehicle but stopped a few inches shy of the body.
Floodwaters encroached on a recycling bin on an adjacent new-home construction project.
Some motorists took to the roads to get out, but only after much of the water receded.
At the intersection of 13th Street and West Avenue, a steady flow of traffic splashed through or drove around a small pond originating on the west side of 13th and encroaching well into the right-hand lane of southbound West Avenue.
Smaller cars had to stop and wait for northbound traffic to pass before driving around pooled water, briefly skirting the lane of oncoming cars and trucks.
Young pals, Max Barone, and Christian Burton, both of Audubon, N.J., were having a blast riding their bikes through the deep floodwaters on West Avenue near 31st Street.
“Nope. Never,” Max said, when asked if the pair considered not coming out on such soggy sidewalks and streets. “Shout-out to Ripper (his bike brand) and Maxxis, (his tires). They’re holding up well out here. Super tight and everything.”
As the boys became soaked plowing through the flooded intersection, Christian said, “It’s the same as going in the ocean.”
While Tropical Storm Fay’s effects came quickly to the resort, it was nearly all wrapped up by mid-afternoon.
Many people heeded the city’s Office of Emergency Management alerts, sent out in the morning notifying residents and property owners that there was a tropical storm warning and a flash flood warning through the afternoon. People were urged to monitor the weather conditions, move their vehicles to higher ground, and not drive through floodwaters.
And while heavy rains pummeled the roadways, and sustained winds were predicted at 35 mph to 40 mph and gusts up to 50 mph, there was something positive – not much in the way of tidal flooding.
