A powerful nor’easter floods New Jersey shore towns and forces evacuations

A slow-moving nor’easter spent the weekend dumping rain and pushing tidal surge into the Jersey Shore, flooding streets in Point Pleasant, Surf City and Egg Harbor Township and forcing evacuations in Manasquan and Sea Bright. New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill declared a state of emergency across eight counties two days before the worst tides arrived, and the National Weather Service kept a coastal flood warning in effect into Sunday afternoon as the storm stalled off the coast. Wind gusts topped 60 mph along the shore, and rescuers in Egg Harbor Township pulled nine adults and a dog from flooded motel rooms.

Point Pleasant, Surf City and Egg Harbor Township flood as the storm stalls

The system crept along the coast rather than pushing through it, and that stall is what turned routine tidal flooding into a multi-day event stretching across the entire weekend. Forecasters said Saturday the storm would “stall or meander” through Monday before finally pulling away Tuesday, which meant shore towns faced repeated rounds of high tide rather than a single surge that rises and then retreats within a day.

Point Pleasant, Surf City and Egg Harbor Township all reported street flooding, and residents on Long Island resorted to kayaking through flooded neighborhoods. In Egg Harbor Township, rescuers pulled nine adults and a dog from flooded motel rooms overnight as water rose faster than the guests staying there had planned for, turning a routine overnight stay into an emergency response call.

Manasquan and Sea Bright evacuate ahead of the tide

Manasquan issued a voluntary evacuation for residents in low-lying, non-elevated structures, particularly those with special needs, as forecasters warned of tidal flooding severe enough to draw comparisons to past shore storms among longtime residents who remember Superstorm Sandy. A few miles north, Sea Bright opened its recreation center to house evacuees as water crept toward homes along the borough’s narrow strip of land wedged between the Shrewsbury River and the Atlantic Ocean.

Neither order carried the legal force of a mandatory evacuation, but both towns treated the threat as serious enough to open shelter space and clear low-lying blocks days ahead of the weekend’s worst tides, moving vulnerable residents out before roads flooded rather than scrambling after water had already cut off the streets.

An eight-county state of emergency puts New Jersey’s response machine on alert

Sherrill’s Executive Order No. 25, signed at 5 p.m. on Sept. 25, covers Atlantic, Burlington, Cape May, Cumberland, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean and Salem counties and stays in force until the governor determines the emergency has ended. The order activates the State Emergency Operations Center, lets the state police superintendent direct county and municipal response plans, and authorizes New Jersey’s Adjutant General to call up National Guard members if local resources fall short of what towns need.

“Starting tonight, this nor’easter is expected to bring damaging winds, heavy rain, significant coastal flooding,” Sherrill said in the statement announcing the order, urging residents to charge phones, secure loose outdoor items and never drive through flooded roads no matter how familiar the route looks.

The order also gives the state authority to commandeer private property and suspend regulations that would slow the response, powers New Jersey has invoked in past nor’easters and hurricanes when tidal flooding shut down roads across several counties at the same time and left local governments unable to coordinate on their own.

A coastal flood warning holds through Sunday afternoon

The National Weather Service’s Mount Holly office said in its 3 p.m. Saturday briefing that major coastal flooding was expected along New Jersey and Delaware’s Atlantic beaches and the Delaware Bay, with peak tides most likely Saturday morning and again Saturday night. A coastal flood warning covering Jersey Shore zones including the Lavallette area remained in effect until 2 p.m. Sunday, forecasting two to three feet of inundation above ground level in low-lying areas near shorelines and tidal waterways.

Rain totals were expected to run one to two inches along the Interstate 95 corridor and as much as three inches over eastern New Jersey, spread across a 48- to 60-hour stretch pushing into Monday. Wind gusts along the New Jersey and Delaware coasts reached 60 mph, with sustained winds near 30 to 40 mph, while the same system pushed gusts near 65 mph past Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket as it wrapped its outer bands into New England.

The Millstone River, well inland from the coastal flooding, was forecast to reach minor flood stage by early Monday morning, evidence that the storm’s rainfall, not just its ocean-driven tides, was still moving through New Jersey’s waterways days after the nor’easter first arrived off the coast.

The system’s reach stretched well beyond the Jersey Shore. Heavy surf caused beach erosion and dune flooding in Ocean City, Maryland, while Norfolk, Virginia reported isolated flooding through the week as the same low-pressure system pumped moisture up the entire mid-Atlantic coastline. Organizers canceled the Global Citizen Festival for the first time in 14 years and called off the Ironman Triathlon at Jones Beach, decisions that reflected how far south and north the storm’s wind and surf risk extended even as the heaviest flooding stayed concentrated on the Jersey Shore.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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