Destruction in the Wake of Storm

The storm that ripped through the Toms River area on Friday night and downed trees on Jasam Court produced little other damage around town, Police Chief Michael Mastronardy said on Saturday.

Approximately 90 homes in the township remained without power by midday, according to Gerry Ricciardi, a regional spokesman for Jersey Central Power & Light, and he said the remainder of those scattered outages should be resolved by 6 p.m.

"We were good compared to Brick and Lakewood," Mastronardy said, where power outages forced Ocean Medical Center in Brick to turn to its generators and the storm toppled trees onto homes in several places. In Lakewood, strong winds blew the roof off part of an apartment complex. 

Approximately 90 homes in the township remained without power by midday, according to Gerry Ricciardi, a regional spokesman for Jersey Central Power & Light, and he said the remainder of those scattered outages should be resolved by 6 p.m. At the height of the outages, about 10,000 homes in Brick and Toms River were without electricity, Ricciardi said.

Most of the power outages were on the eastern side of town, Mastronardy said.

Residents on Jasam Court, off Vermont Avenue in the northwestern portion of town, near the Lakewood boundary, reported seeing what appeared to be a tornado that ripped up some trees, even dropping one on a vehicle parked on the street.

Resident Gaye Schron saw a funnel cloud in his backyard. 

"It ripped these trees up right here next to the pool, then seemed to go around the house and out to the front yard. It was dusk when the storm hit, so I won't know until morning if there was any damage to my house," Schron said around midnight on Friday night.

Once in the front of his Jasam Court home, the storm ripped up trees in the front yard of Schron's neighbor, Ross Gertner.

"It was scary. I was in the backyard closing umbrellas when I heard my wife scream. I ran inside, and my son's friend had just come in saying that he saw some Robocans go flying past his head," Schron said.

The storm ripped up a tree at the home next to Gertner's, skipped the tree that divides their property, then ripped up the next two in Gertner's front lawn, dropping one of them on his brother's car that was parked on the street. 

The aftermath of the storm in the yards of these few houses looked like the set of a Hollywood disaster movie, with tree trunks and limbs scatted everywhere. The road was lined with leaves and twigs, a reminder of the trees that lay across there only hours before, blocking traffic and damaging a vehicle.