Red Bank police checking out a car left on Drs. James Parker Boulevard as snow came down hard Saturday morning. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank plow operators had an easier time than in the past making their way down borough streets during the weekend snowstorm, police Chief Darren McConnell tells redbankgreen.
Fewer illegally parked cars also resulted in a dramatic drop in the number of violation notices being issued.
A view east along Waverly Place in Red Bank Sunday evening. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
With a hard pack of ice and snow remaining on local streets after a weekend blizzard, some schools on the Greater Red Bank Green announced delayed openings Monday.
The weather to start the week won’t do much to hasten the cleanup, with freezing temperatures lingering.
Shovelers, snowblowers and snow-happy kids took to the streets of Red Bank as a blizzard that began Friday night wound down early Saturday afternoon.
The storm left more than a foot of snow, and JCP&L reported five customers were without electrical service shortly after 4 p.m.
Check out the selection of photos from redbankgreen’s late-morning walkaround. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
With a blizzard expected to wallop the New Jersey coast starting Friday evening, Red Bank police are reminding residents to get their vehicles into driveways and public parking lots to allow plows through. More →
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.)
If you value the news coverage provided by redbankgreen, please become a paying member. Click here for details about our new, free newsletter and membership information.
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.
A car left on South Street during the storm. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
For the second time this year, a snowstorm that plopped about a foot of snow on Red BankWednesday and early Thursday came with a blizzard of parking tickets.
Police issued 260 parking violations during the storm, tying a one-day record set during a January 4 storm, police Chief Darren McConnell tells redbankgreen.
Plows will roll out of the borough DPU yard on Chestnut Street starting at about 3 a.m. Thursday, says a borough official. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
As recently as Tuesday morning, “we were begging for salt,” Red Bank utilities head Gary Watson tells redbankgreen.
But by the end of the day, his department obtained a load of salt – just enough, Watson expects, to get the town through the snowstorm forecast for Wednesday night into Thursday, when 6 to 10 inches are expected to fall.
“We’re OK for this event,” Watson said Wednesday afternoon, moments after wrapping a meeting at which plowing assignments were given out.
“I’ve been dying for a real snow,” Adrian Gubbay told redbankgreen as he cleared slush in front of a neighbor’s house on Madison Avenue in Red Bank Saturday morning. The overnight snowfall gave Gubbay his first opportunity to use an old family tractor he’d restored in recent months. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
An unidentified man shovels snow on English Plaza in Red Bank earlier this month. (Click to enlarge)
Repeatedly frustrated by an inability to clear snow-clogged streets, Red Bank officials are expected Wednesday night to mull an outright ban on overnight parking when it snows.
Also on the agenda for the borough council’s bimonthly meeting: a measure requiring shovelers to clear a path at least 42 inches wide, and banning them from throwing or plowing the snow out into the street.
A street lamp lies on the sidewalk in front of Fair Haven Borough Hall Tuesday, several weeks after police said it was downed by a Monmouth County snow plow, and just yards east of another pole that also appears to have been clipped by a plow but didn’t fall.
The River Road lamps should be safe Wednesday, as the forecast is for under an inch of snow – probably not enough to plow. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
A Red Bank snow plow navigates around parked cars on Madison Avenue shortly before 9 a.m. Thursday. Police Chief Darren McConnell says no tickets were issued for overnight parking violations because “the snow started so late and was lighter than expected,” but two cars that hadn’t moved since the last storm were towed from Locust Avenue. The continuing storm has borough officials warning of summonses and possible towing for vehicles left out on streets Thursday night into Friday morning. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
The view looking south on Leighton Avenue through the windshield of a borough salt truck early Wednesday morning, above. Below, a plow working Monmouth Street. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The plowman got lucky this time.
Tuesday’s fast-moving snowstorm may have caught motorists and school administrators off guard with its blinding swiftness. But it dropped a powdery load, and ended late at night, giving those responsible for clearing it from roadways a leg up.
In Red Bank, it also helped that more residents than usual moved their cars off the streets, said Gary Watson, director of the borough public utilities department.
“That made a huge difference,” he told redbankgreen as he drove a road-salting truck early Wednesday morning.
Snow lies atop wires and tree limbs above Branch Avenue early Wednesday morning. Below, a borough plow working Shrewsbury Avenue. (Click to enlarge)
All of Red Bank’s streets had been plowed by early Thursday morning following a snowstorm that dumped another ten or so inches on the region, according to public utilities director Gary Watson.
“Our streets are in googd shape,” Watson tells redbankgreen. “All roads are open. It was a busy night but a safe night.”
Some shots from the central Red Bank taken before dawn Wednesday. 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.
The man in charge of clearing Red Bank’s streets called Tuesday night’s snowfall of about ten inches “average” and said his crews had opened all borough streets by 7a.
“We were lucky,” said public utilities director Gary Watson. “We got less than forecast. This is pretty average.”
The snow was also lighter than that which fell in the blizzard of December 26-27, which paralyzed the town for days.
Dee Patel’s grocery store on Shrewsbury Avenue in Red Bank cleared an early path for customers during the December 26-27 storm. (Click to enlarge)
The too-white winter of 2011 is expected to lay a fresh blanket of snow up to 13 inches thick on the Red Bank region Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, according to the National Weather Service.
It begins around 4p, the forecast says, with light accumulation until about 7p, when the snow dump begins in earnest.
The Red Bank police department has issued a request urging that vehicles not be left parked on-street overnight, to make it easier for plows to do their work.
In addition, there are borough streets for which an ordinance prohibits parking when the road is snow-covered, subjecting vehicles to tickets and towing.
In an interview, Red Bank public utilities director Gary Watson and supervisor Bob Holiday discuss the challenges of the December 26-27 blizzard. Below, a jagged glacier of snow dumped by municipal haulers at the Navesink end of Maple Avenue. (Click to enlarge)
A fast-falling, heavy snow, stranded cars and eager-to-dig-out residents combined to make last week’s blizzard a tough clean-up challenge, says the man in charge of Red Bank’s effort.
“This was a significant storm,” public utilities director Gary Watson tells redbankgeen in the video interview above. “You can’t compare this with other storms.”
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?