By David Kilby, Special Writer
Some issues that arose in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy are still being discussed in the area, as northern Burlington County communities try to come up with the best ways to deal with big storms that tend to be hitting New Jersey more frequently in recent years.
Several trees fell on houses in the densely wooded regions of Central Jersey, and in Bordentown at least 25 percent of streets were closed due to downed trees and power lines, said Andy Law, Bordentown’s emergency management coordinator, a few days after the superstorm.
Mr. Law coordinated with the township’s 18-member emergency management council before, during and after the storm, and no major emergencies arose, he said on Dec. 10.
Everything ran smoothly throughout the emergency management operation, said Deputy Mayor Michael Dauber, who was Mr. Law’s contact on the Township Committee since Mayor Karl Feltes was on a vacation he planned long before the storm.
However, while discussing how to improve the township’s response to emergencies in the future, Bordentown Township Committee members Jim Cann and Jill Popko said they would like to see shelters set up in Bordentown sooner.
Mr. Law said the township set up shelters in the high school as soon as they could, and a shelter was set up in the Bordentown Regional High School by Oct. 31; but county regulations order municipalities to direct residents to the county’s Fountain of Life shelter first, he pointed out.
In Mansfield, most of the roads were reopened the day after the storm, except for some secondary roads such as Mill Lane Road and Jacksonville Road, which was closed at the Springfield Township border, said Douglas Borgstrom, Mansfield’s emergency coordinator.
For a few days after the storm, Route 130 also was closed between Kinkora Road and the Bordentown Township line.
Township personnel were on standby before, during and after the storm to do whatever they could to help the residents, said Committeeman Alfred Clark a few days after the storm; and at the township’s Nov. 15meeting Mr. Borgstrom added that there were 60 to 70 responses from the Fire Department for wires and trees that were down.
He said Burlington County’s emergency management lost power, so the township was “pretty much on our own.”
Mr. Borgstrom said Burlington County asks municipalities to use the county shelter, Fountain of Life, before using local shelters, but he added that the township does have arrangements with the school district to use the township schools as shelters if needed in the future.
Residents at the Nov. 15 meeting thanked the Mansfield emergency management team, police and fire departments for their remarkable response to the storm. Much of the management was done through cell phones and social media since most people had no electricity.
Several officers in Springfield were also on standby from the morning of the Oct. 29 to well after the storm.
Downed wires and trees were a serious problem in Springfield, causing about 90 percent of the roads in the township to close down. Fortunately, by the end of the first week of November the roads were cleared. The majority of the township, however, did not receive power back until about a week after the storm, as previously reported.
Since Springfield is a rural community without much infrastructure, neighbors helped out neighbors in cleanup efforts after the storm, Councilman Anthony Marinello said a few days after the hurricane.
”Everybody in this town has to be a volunteer for something,” he said at the council meeting Nov. 14, during a discussion regarding preparedness for future storms. “We don’t have too many people. We all need to do as much as we can. As we saw there’s no one coming here to help us but us.”
Residents in Springfield have raised concern for overhanging tree branches and limbs falling on wires. This is an ongoing problem in the township because there are so many trees in danger of falling on roads, wires or houses that no entity has the means or manpower to trim all of them.
Bill Seaman, of Juliustown, Georgetown Road said, at the Nov. 14 meeting that the trees hanging over roads and wires in the township may have been deemed as just a nuisance in the past, but they should now apparently be seen as a hazard.
Members of the public are still bringing the issue up. At the Springfield meeting Dec. 12, resident Roger Lipencot said he was lucky during Hurricane Sandy because the winds came from the southeast, adding that with the next storm that brings winds from the west a large tree right by his house will most likely fall on the house.
The council estimated that it would cost between $1,200 and $2,000 to cut or trim just a few large oak trees, and there are thousands of trees in the township that need to be trimmed.
Mayor Denis McDaniel has said several times that this is a statewide issue, and the state keeps procrastinating in coming up with a solution.

