Evacuees from Barnegat, Waretown Sheltering at Brackman with Atlantic City Residents Fleeing Irene

Residents from the bayfront and mobile home parks in Barnegat and Waretown are sharing tables and floor space with Atlantic City evacuees as they wait out Hurricane Irene at Barnegat’s Brackman Middle School this weekend.

More than 100 people had arrived at the shelter as of 5 p.m., welcomed by Red Cross workers and members of Waretown’s Community Emergency Response Team. They’ll be sleeping on cots set up in the gymnasium and dining in the school cafeteria until the danger from the storm has passed.

“We’ve got cots for 150 to 200 people,” said Mike Conti, head of the CERT team. “We’ve got food, water, and we’ve got lots of volunteers.”

Many of those sheltering at the school are from Brighton at Barnegat and Pinewood Estate, the Route 72 mobile home parks that were given an evacuation order by the township.

“Hurricanes love mobile home parks,” said Carol Mercer, a Brighton resident who was settling in alongside a neighbor, Betty Nendze, and Long Beach Island resident Janet Rose.

Rose said she’d had car trouble, but enjoyed a lift from her home in Surf City.

“The police chief himself came to my house and drove me to meet my friend he said.” As for the shelter, “it’s almost like camping with a bunch of people,” she said.

The ride to the school wasn’t as direct or as quick for the 50 or so Atlantic City residents who were turned away from shelters in their own county before landing here.

“We stopped a few places,” said Carlos Acevedo, who arrived with his sisters Coral Perez and Yesenia Vasquez and Vasquez’s son Yandel. The family left behind their mom on New Jersey Avenue in downtown Atlantic City.

“There’s water across the street, beside us, behind us,” Acevedo said. They’re feeling calmer now that they’re safely in a shelter, “but I’m missing my moms,” he said.

The influx of Atlantic City residents was unexpected, but the shelter has plenty of resources to accommodate them, officials said.

And plenty of help from volunteers of all ages.

Emily Roessner, 11, of Waretown, spent much of the day setting up cots, welcoming fellow evacuees and giving them tours of the facility.

“I just figured I’m not going to spend all my time wearing out the batteries on my DS,” she said, “So I said, ‘Just put me to work.’”