Politicians are notorious for reacting to a crisis only after the disaster has already occurred. Have a condo building cave in, burying its residents, and you will get political action and recrimination. Government officials seem to prefer to speak about plans for disaster response. It is time that Cape May County’s woefully inadequate ability to evacuate its residents and visitors gets serious attention before the worst happens and the blame game begins.
This county is a $7 billion bonanza for the State of New Jersey. More than $1.5 million in tax revenue per day is generated by the county’s tourism economy.
On a good weekend in the summer, there are more people within the boundaries of the county than live in Boston. The summer population of this county on a given in-season day exceeds the population of Seattle, or Denver, or Baltimore.
If an evacuation was necessary, it would be the equivalent of moving the population of Newark, Jersey City, and Trenton combined out of harm’s way on Route 9, Route 47, and the Garden State Parkway.
Calls for the extension of Route 55 into Cape May County have often been seen as a potential boon to tourism when the real benefit would be a significant addition to the county’s evacuation capability.
Other proposals over the years have included calls for widening the existing roads, increasing mass transit, and even creating a reversible third lane on Route 47. None have gained any traction.
The county Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) approved hazard mitigation plan notes that “limited road connections strongly affect evacuation routes and evacuation times together with road flooding hazards during major storms.”
Not all major storm events can be precisely predicted with the advance warning needed to accomplish an effective evacuation of the county given the time such an evacuation would require on the existing road infrastructure.
The danger to the county and its visitors has grown, as the routes out of the county have remained static. The number of visitors increases annually. The threat of 100-year storm events has escalated significantly. The existing routes out of the county are not only likely to be overwhelmed in even a partial evacuation, but they are also themselves threatened with significant flooding potential.
Will it take a disaster for state and federal officials to address the problem? Once again, this year, the county commissioners passed a resolution calling for the extension of Route 55. The long overdue project has been permanently stalled by cost estimates and the objections of environmental groups like the Sierra Club.
In 2016, the Sierra Club’s then-Director Jeff Tittle said, “This road is even more unnecessary given the clear alternatives that can be taken.”
Clear alternatives, Jeff? We are talking about moving the population of Boston if the need arises during the summer season.
The funding objections feed themselves. Each year of inaction raises the projected expense. This in a state that needed a constitutional referendum to protect its gas tax-generated highway funds because of the history of pilfering those funds by state politicians more interested in here and now spending. All of this occurs in what is already a high taxation environment.
The time has come to address the problem. The potential for saving people’s lives must take priority over the exaggerations that an extended Route 55 would represent a “destructive road through the Pinelands.”
We have existing evacuation routes that need to be raised. We have roads that need to be widened. We have a Route 55 project that is only getting more expensive by the day. In short, we have an unsafe environment facing an increasingly dangerous future.
We need a plan, and we need it now. The lack of viable routes out of the county may encourage people to shelter in place even in the face of threats that clearly call for evacuation.
This is an issue whose time has come. It cannot continue to be kicked down the road. The new infrastructure funding from Washington will bring billions to the Garden State. We know most of those funds will be allocated to the north of us. This is the time to address our problem, or perhaps our state leaders can continue to ignore the problem, while staff writers work on the statements they will need to issue if the disaster they can see coming actually occurs.
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From the Bible: Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed. Proverbs 15:22
