Politics & Government

Many Point Beach Residents Still Have Post-Irene Mess and Outages

Point Beach to pick up bulk trash on Wed. and two dates in September

The Miles families always thought of their Point Beach homes as waterfront, not water-filled.

That changed with Hurricane Irene, which sent the Atlantic Ocean over the boardwalk and Silver Lake into their Trenton Avenue homes, across the street and into some of those homes.

"I was raised in this house and I've never had flooding before," said David Miles, who lives with his wife, Michelle, and their two children, ages 3 and 1, in the house where he grew up.

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Irene sent the lake into their children's playroom, where the carpeting has to be replaced, and into their garage. Luckily, they picked up the children's toys before Irene had her way with their play area.

Unfortunately, a number of white doors in flooded sections of their homes have water damage on the bottom, no longer close properly and likely have to be replaced.

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Next door lives his brother, Dan Miles, and his wife, Danielle.

"At least we still have our house," said Danielle, dragging wet cardboard boxes from her flooded basement into her driveway, the new home to a large, wet blue couch.

The town will pick up wet cardboard with regular recycling collection, a departure from the norm which prohibits recycling collection of wet cardboard, said Mayor Vincent Barrella, in a letter issued Tuesday afternoon that also announced two additional bulk pick-up dates.

Danielle Miles said this is the first time their home has had any flooding since they purchased it five years ago.

Danielle hasn't seen her husband, Dan, much during the past few days.

He is a volunteer Beach firefighter and, like other emergency responders, both volunteer and paid, , and other calls that don't make headlines, has kept him away from home a lot.

But Danielle and her family next door aren't complaining.

The three emphasized that they're lucky, compared to the residents who had flooding throughout their main living space or prolonged power outages.

JCP&L was reporting Tuesday afternoon that 239 Point Beach residents and 2,795 Borough residents were still without power.

However, local officials said the numbers may actually be less than that. Many boardwalk and other local establishments are back in business.

Barrella said it appeared that much of Point Beach has power restored, except for a few areas, including sections of Sanborne and Parkway where trees fell on power lines.

Now the Miles families just want to get rid of their wet, bulk trash and try to forget Irene ever came.

Regarding municipal collection of trash and recycling, the regular schedule has resumed.

In addition, the town is adding Sept. 7 and 14 for storm-damaged bulk items, such as carpeting, furniture and appliances, according to the mayor's letter.

Those two dates are in addition to the regularly scheduled bulk pick-up date on Wednesday.

Barrella also said in the letter that, using the emergency powers vested in the office of the mayor pursuant to state law, he approved a local public works department plan to waive fees for bulk pick-up items.

However, that only applies to storm-damaged items.

"It is important that residents comply with the bulk pick-up criteria," Barrella said. "The additional pick-up days are not for household garbage or traditional recycling items."

Household garbage and recycling items will be picked up according to the normal schedules, including the schedules for Labor Day pick-ups.

Labor Day, Sept. 5, is a regularly-scheduled garbage pick-up day in Districts 3 and 4 and a regularly-scheduled recycling pick-up day in Districts 1 and 2.

Also, the town, departing from standard restrictions, is allowing residents to put more than four cans of household garbage out for pick-up. The trash may be placed in can or heavy-duty trash bags, the letter states.

Bulk items should be not placed curbside on regular trash collection days, the letter says.

Trash, recycling and bulk pickups will not be delayed due to municipal furlough days because there are none in the summer, Barrella said on Tuesday. The last furlough day was in May and the next one is in September.

To be placed on a list for bulk pick-ups or for more information, Point Beach residents can call Lynn Zupko at (732) 892-8770 or Karen Mills at (732) 892-3757.


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