Cars parked illegally on South Street following a snowfall last February. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
With the first snow of 2022 in the forecast, Red Bank police advised residents not to park their cars on borough streets Thursday night.
A 2017 ordinance requires vehicles be removed from all streets during and immediately after snowstorms to allow for plowing.
Message board at Johnny Jazz Park on Shrewsbury Avenue reminds residents to get cars off the street during a snowfall in February, 2019. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Business Administrator Ziad Shehady suggested raising the penalty for snow parking violations to as much as $300 Wednesday.
But Councilwoman Kate Triggiano vowed the fine would never be raised “into that stratosphere.”
Red Bank snowplows working around a car parked on Garfield Place Sunday afternoon. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The second snowstorm of February generated half as many parking tickets as the first, Red Bank police said Monday.
Red Bank snowplows stuggled to clear Cedar Street, above, after last week’s two-day snowstorm. The story was a bit different on Madison Avenue, below.
As reported by redbankgreen, police issued a near-record number of $38 tickets during the storm for violations of a borough ordinance requiring that all vehicles be removed from all streets during snow emergencies.
Still, the move-your-car message seems to be getting through, and compliance levels were also high, public works director Cliff Keen told the borough council Wednesday.
“I think residents are starting to understand that if the cars are off the road it makes our job a lot easier,” he said. That includes not driving and “competing with our snowplows,” he said.
With another storm expected to drop 4-to-8 inches more snow Sunday, residents who don’t have access to driveways may park vehicles in two municipal lots. Details here. (Video above courtesy of Suzanne Viscomi; below by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
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Joe Secula of Locust Avenue in Red Bank made the most of this week’s 7.6-inch snowfall, crafting a front yard King Neptune, above, and a king-of-the-road motorcyclist, at right.
Their reigns won’t last long, with sunshine returning and daytime temperatures rising to around 40 degrees Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.
See the extended forecast for the Greater Red Bank Green below. (Photos by Cindy Secula. Click to enlarge.)
Cars and trucks parked on Bridge Avenue early Tuesday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank police issued a near-record number of parking violations during the snowstorm that began Sunday, redbankgreen has learned.
Two pedestrians navigated the slippery, unplowed snow on Monmouth Street near the Red Bank train station early Tuesday following a storm that dropped about eight inches Sunday and Monday.
At around 6 a.m., borough streets were a slushy mess as light rain alternated with more snow. Roads maintained by Monmouth County were clear at that hour.
The north end of Maple Avenue in Red Bank was untouched by plows and tire tracks, but the intersection at West Front Street was clear Sunday evening, early in a northeaster expected to last up to 48 hours.
By dawn Monday, more than four inches had accumulated in Red Bank. A heavy, wet snowfall was expected throughout the day, bringing at least several more inches, according to the National Weather Service.
Of equal concern are wind gusts of up to 45 miles per hour, which could bring down tree limbs and power lines, the NWS warned. Governor Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency Sunday, and New Jersey Transit suspended rail and bus activity throughout the day Monday.
See the extended forecast for the Greater Red Bank Green below.
Liquid-brine prep work for an expected snowstorm left some artistic designs on the pavement in Fair Haven Saturday.
The Greater Red Bank Green could see accumulations of between 7 and 14 inches of snow in a storm expected to begin Sunday afternoon and continue into Tuesday morning, according to the National Weather Service.
Along with winds gusting up to 40 miles per hour and threats of power outages and coastal flooding, road travel is expected to be “difficult to impossible,” the NWS says.
Red Bank’s government has issued a parking alert; see below, along with the extended forecast for the region below. (Photos by John T. Ward. 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.
A scrap was all that remained Tuesday of a banner promoting the recently concluded run of ‘Charlotte’s Web’ at the Two River Theater Company in Red Bank. The banner, strung over Broad Street at Irving Place, was damaged in the December 26-27 blizzard. (Click to enlarge)
A&P in Little Silver reopened early Friday afternoon after the building’s roof partially collapsed this week. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
The A&P supermarket in Little Silver is back in business after a 48-hour shutdown caused by this week’s blizzard.
Contractors worked since Wednesday to shore up the roof of the building, which partially collapsed under the weight of heavy snow, and the store got permission to reopen its doors at around noon Friday.
Within an hour, shoppers wended through the store loading up carts and baskets, moving around a cordoned off section at the south end where the damage occurred.
Stella, a golden retriever “from New Hampshire,” her owner notes, rests her chin on a snowbank outside the Starbucks on Broad Street in Red Bank Thursday morning. (Click to enlarge)
A towrig pulls a stranded car from the snow while utility crews work on the opposite side of West Front Street at 3:30p Wednesday. (Click to enlarge)
A utility pole replacement job continued to vex motorists traveling through Red Bank Wednesday, adding to woes dominated by icy streets and snowpile-narrowed driving lanes.
A snow plow on East River Road Monday. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
While other towns continue trying to dig out from massive amounts of snow, it’s down to a cleanup effort in Rumson.
Public Works crews worked through the night Monday plowing through the borough’s seven-square-miles, and by Tuesday morning all streets were open, “which, I don’t think, a lot of the neighboring towns can say,” Mayor John Ekdahl said.
No they can’t.
On Monday, redbankgreen brought you photos taken on a walking tour of Red Bank shortly after the end of the paralyzing blizzard that walloped parts of the northeastern United States over the previous 24 hours.
Today, we give you the morning after the morning after, in which we retrace our steps to see how much has changed over the subsequent 24.
Photos are in pairs, the first of which was taken Monday morning, and the second, Tuesday morning.
(To enlarge the photo display, start it, then click the embiggen symbol in the lower right corner. To get back to redbankgreen, hit your escape key.)
Privately owned vehicles stranded in the weekend snowstorm aren’t the only ones hampering the street-clearing effort in Red Bank, it turns out.
redbankgreen came across this municipal truck stuck in snow, engine running, without any borough employees in sight, on River Street Tuesday morning.
Huh?
Vehicles backed up along Riverside Avenue earlier today. Below, utility crews working on West Front Street, a portion of which is closed to traffic. (Click to enlarge)
Snow-clogged streets and work to replace a snapped utility pole on West Front Street is causing major traffic tie-ups in and around Red Bank Tuesday morning.
Police shut down West Front from Broad Street to Maple Avenue to enable the repair work, which was still underway as of 10:15a with no estimated time of completion yet available, said police Captain Darren McConnell.
Partly as a result of the shutdown, traffic was backed up on northbound Broad, eastbound West Front and southbound Riverside Avenue all the way across the Cooper Bridge into Middletown. A Red Bank municipal employee stuck in the tie-up told redbankgreen he’d been inching along for half an hour.
As the wind and snow relented Monday morning, plows, shovels and snowblowers got heavy use in Fair Haven and Rumson.
redbankgreen‘s Dustin Racioppi trudged through the streets to snap shots of residents digging out from the season’s first major storm.
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Among the three vehicles left abandoned on the Red Bank end of the Cooper Bridge were these two, still there at 9:30a Monday. Below, a motorist left a car at West Front Street and Riverside Avenue. (Click to enlarge)
Officials in Red Bank and nearby towns are asking motorists to stay off the streets while plow crews dig out from the blizzard that socked the region with at least two feet of snow Sunday and early Monday.
Abandoned vehicles and pedestrians walking in streets slowed the start of snow removal efforts, Red Bank officials say. Now, cars mired in deep drifts continue to hamper plowing.
“It’s a severe problem,” said Gary Watson, who heads up the borough’s public utilities department.
Numerous cars left stuck at intersections could still be found at daylight Monday, including three caught in deep snow on Bridge Avenue at the foot of the Cooper Bridge.
“We’re working on getting towtrucks out,” police Captain Darren McConnell told redbankgreen. “They’ve become a hinderance to the plows.”
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Scenes from Red Bank late Wednesday afternoon, during the second blizzard to hit the region in four days.
It’ll be partly sunny with temperatures well above freezing today to start turning all that purty white stuff into an ugly grey porridge.
Here’s the forecast from the National Weather Service:
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Count Basie Theatre CEO Numa Saisselin.
Hoping to appease Steve Winwood fans who couldn’t make the musician’s concert because of Wednesday’s blizzard, officials at the Count Basie Theatre are offering them free seats to one of four upcoming performances by other artists.
They’re also attempting to clarify the position the theater found itself in as weather forecasts grew ominous in the days leading up to the show. Canceling the concert would have meant a “crippling financial loss” approaching $100,000, Basie CEO Numa Saisselin says in a letter to ticketholders posted overnight on the theater’s website.
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Mother Nature dropped about a foot of snow on the Red Bank area in a storm that raged early Saturday morning but appeared to have abated by midday.
The redbankgreen was out there to pixelate the event.
Here’s the National Weather Service forecast: