A Walgreens employee prepares to inject a resident of the Wesleyan in Red Bank with her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine Wednesday. (Photo by Nick Delmar. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Monmouth County has recorded 115 COVID-19 related deaths since the start of the new year, according to data released by the New Jersey Health Department Friday.
The Atrium at Navesink Harbor on Riverside Avenue. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
State health officials cited a Red Bank longterm care facility that has been the scene of 10 recent COVID-19 deaths for “deficiencies” in its defense against the virus in November, redbankgreen has learned.
The Atrium at Navesink Harbor, the buildings at center and right, as seen from the Navesink River in 2017. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Six more residents of an assisted-living facility in Red Bank have died of COVID-19 in recent days, data released by the New Jersey Health Department Monday indicate.
No, that’s not a forecast map. It depicts snowfall totals from the three-day blizzard that ended 25 years ago today, in 1996. The northeaster is one of only two storms to be classified as “extreme” on the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale,” a measure of intensity. Who remembers that whopper?
By contrast, the coming weekend will be “tranquil (some would say boring,” with “plenty of sunshine and near-normal temps,” according to a tweet Friday by the National Weather Service‘s Mount Holly office. Check out the extended forecast below. (PNWS visual. Click to enlarge.)
The Atrium at Navesink Harbor as seen from the Molly Pitcher Inn in 2014. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Three residents of a senior assisted-living facility in Red Bank have died of COVID-19 since mid-December, according to data released by the New Jersey Health Department Monday.
The deaths at the Atrium at Navesink Harbor occurred as pandemic-driven hospitalizations, and the need for critical care, rose across Monmouth County.
Greg Cannon, Fair Haven’s new borough attorney, at a Red Bank council meeting in 2017. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Now in the majority, Fair Haven’s Democrats swapped out the longtime borough attorney Monday night.
On a bipartisan vote at the annual municipal reorganization meeting, conducted via Zoom, the council replaced Sal Alfieri with Greg Cannon, who also serves as borough attorney in neighboring Red Bank.
Ho-hum: the first Monday of 2021 brings a week of unremarkable weather to the Greater Red Bank Green. Would anyone object?
According to the National Weather Service, our area can expect daytime peak temperatures around 40 degrees daily through Sunday, and not much precipitation. (NWS visual. Click to enlarge.)
The new shop as it appeared before dawn Wednesday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After nearly two and a half years of town-splitting arguments, Fair Haven now has a Dunkin’ coffee shop.
Considering the wringer he went through to get to this point, owner Domenic Sequeira was in a pretty affable mood Wednesday morning.
An Immediate Care COVID-19 testing tent in Red Bank’s White Street lot Monday night. The company has been offering free tests at the site for weeks. (Photo by Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
COVID-19 pressure on Monmouth County hospitals continued to increase in the past week, according to the latest data from the county government.
At the same time, demand for intensive care and ventilators to treat patients with the virus showed slight signs of easing.
Separately, Red Bank Regional High announced a plan for free COVID-19 testing for staff and students.
Minus their customary caroling, to minimize the spread of COVID-19, neighbors on South Street in Red Bank went ahead with their annual display of luminaria Friday night.
Monday at 5:02 a.m. marked the solstice, the passage from autumn into winter in the northern hemisphere. This year, by coincidence, December 21 is when the two largest planets in Earth’s solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, will appear to nearly merge in the night sky in a rare phenomenon called a ‘Christmas star,’ according to Astronomy magazine.
A clear sky is needed to see the “great conjunction,” but the outlook for the Greater Red Bank Green is less than ideal, as detailed by the National Weather Service in the extended forecast below. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
While the big kids sledded, two-year-old Mac Messina of Little Silver was fascinated by a snowman at Tower Hill Presbyterian Church in Red Bank Thursday. In Fair Haven, right, siblings James, Catie and Keagan Straine collaborated on their own snowman.
With temperatures not much above freezing until Sunday, the snowpersons may remain a few days, according to the National Weather Service.
Check out the extended forecast, below, which takes us into winter: the solstice will be occur at 5:02 a.m. Monday. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Red Bank photographer Allan Bass captured Wednesday’s storm-in-progress on Broad Street, above, and in Riverside Gardens Park, below.
Afterward, a resident of Riverview Towers shared the photo at right, a view of downtown Red Bank Thursday morning. (Click to enlarge.)
The first snowstorm of 2020-2021 lived down to billing, leaving behind a heavy, wet mess of slush and puddles across the Greater Red Bank Green Thursday morning.
With snow still falling and strong winds adding bite that drove the feels-like temperature down to the mid-teens, a shoveler faced a long slog at the SuperFoodtown on Broad Street in Red Bank, above.
Slush and sparks fly off a Monmouth County public works plow as it cleared Broad Street at East Bergen Place shortly after 5 a.m. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
On a brief predawn tour on foot, redbankgreen encountered about six inches of ice-topped snow, with equal depths of slush in roadway gutters and at intersections.
The National Weather Service forecast that the snowfall would end by 10 a.m., bringing less than one additional inch. But the wind, with gusts as high as 40 mile per hour, will continue, imperiling tree limbs and power lines.
Shortly before 6 a.m, the Jersey Central Power & Light outage website showed 34 Little Silver customers without electricity; fewer than 5 in Red Bank; and none in Fair Haven.
Meantime, a state of emergency issued Wednesday by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy remained in effect.
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Autumn 2020, meet winter. Ice and fallen leaves shared space alongside Harding Road in Red Bank Wednesday afternoon as the first flakes of an expected snowstorm began coming down.
The National Weather Service dialed back its snow accumulation forecast for the area that includes the Greater Red Bank Green to about three inches by late Thursday morning. It had earlier forecast a total of four or five inches.
Still, with a “significant winter storm” expected to hit northern part of the state with higher totals, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency beginning at 2 p.m. one hour after an early release of state government employees.
(redbankgreen photo. Click to enlarge.)
A briny mixture to inhibit ice was sprayed onto the roadway on McCarter Avenue in Fair Haven Tuesday in advance of a snowstorm expected on the Greater Red Bank Green starting Wednesday evening.
Though the storm could drop 16 inches elsewhere in New Jersey, the Red Bank region will likely see four or five inches by late Thursday morning, according to the National Weather Service.
A roofer’s torch generates heat haze on the roof of a building being readied for a gym at Maple Avenue and White Street in Red Bank Tuesday.
Heat and a good roof will come in handy Wednesday, when the Greater Red Bank Green is expected to get hit with the first snowstorm of the season, according to forecasts.
In advance, Red Bank’s government issued a parking alert to residents Tuesday.
Councilwoman Susan Sorensen working a booth at the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair in 2013. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A divided council cleared financing to advance plans for new police and public works facilities in Fair Haven Monday night.
At its final session of 2020, the council also extended the employment of Theresa Casagrande as borough administrator and bid goodbye to Councilwoman Susan Sorensen.
Intensive care bed usage in Monmouth County hospitals rose to 60 Monday, the highest level since May, while hospitalizations for COVID-19 declined to 418, from 446 a week earlier, the freeholders reported. (Monmouth County data. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
With an historic rollout of the first COVID-19 vaccine about to begin in New Jersey, “the light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter,” Governor Phil Murphy said Monday.
At the same time, hospitals statewide and in Monmouth County are treating rising numbers of patients who need intensive care and ventilators because of the coronavirus, data show.
Frontline healthcare workers at Riverview Medical Center received cheers from the police, first aid and fire personnel in April. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A nationwide rollout of America’s first COVID-19 vaccine is expected to begin Tuesday with inoculations of frontline healthcare workers.
Among them will be employees of Hackensack Meridian Health, the parent company of Red Bank’s Riverview Medical Center, according to chief executive Robert Garrett.
“I truly believe this is going to be the beginning of the end of this terrible pandemic,” Garrett said on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation‘ Sunday.
Will the Greater Red Bank Green be among the areas of New Jersey to get an expected snowstorm Wednesday night?
Eastern Monmouth County appears on the outer margin of a region the National Weather Service expects will get up to five inches of snow overnight into Thursday, mainly north and west of Interstate 95.
Meantime, the Greater Green will see little or no snow accumulation Monday, a generally rainy day when flakes are expected to mix in after 3 p.m. Check out the extended forecast below. (NWS graphic. Click to enlarge.)
Sunset tinted the sky over Harding Road and Prospect Avenue in Red Bank in hues of pink Tuesday, as seen from The Church at Tower Hill.
The Greater Red Bank Green may see its first snow flurries of the season Wednesday, though “a dusting, at best” is likely, according to the National Weather Service. Check out the extended forecast below. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Red Bank schools, including the middle school, continued on all-remote learning Monday after a planned return to a hybrid schedule was postponed. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Governor Phil Murphy warned of a delayed post-Thanksgiving COVID-19 surge Monday, while cautioning New Jersey residents against gathering over the coming holiday season.
The approval allows an upward expansion of the existing structure, seen below. (Rendering by Anthony Conduouris; photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A one-story dance studio in Fair Haven is set to make a grand jeté to a second floor following zoning board approval Thursday night.
Board Chairman Todd Lehder praised the Kick Dance Studios plan as a harbinger of the borough’s future. He was also the only board member to vote against it.
A temporary tent outside Riverview Medical Center’s emergency room entrance in May. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The current resurgence in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in New Jersey is not having an adverse impact on the hospital network that includes Red Bank’s Riverview Medical Center, the organization said in a statement Thursday.
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 continue to rise in New Jersey, data show. (New Jersey Health Department graphic. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Though New Jersey’s rate of COVID-19 transmission has been easing in recent weeks, that data conceals a harsh reality, Governor Phil Murphy said at his regular briefing Wednesday.
At 1.08 percent, the rate of COVID-19 transmission is at its lowest point since September 16, but “it still means that each new case is leading to more than one other new case,” he said. “This virus is still spreading.”