All Clear In Manahawkin After Tornado

Stafford police have reopened all roadways in Manahawkin, after Tuesday's tornado tore through sections of the township, Capt. Thomas Dellane said.


Atlantic Electric workers were out clearing roads and removing downed trees soon after the story hit a little after 10 a.m., he said.

"All roadways are open at this point," Dellane said. "They did a pretty good job cleaning up. They were out there pretty quickly."

Roughly 7,000 residents lost power after the storm, with 500 still out at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. But power has now been restored throughout the township, he said.

"It came back on in shifts," he said.

Dellane was in his police car about a half a mile away when the tornado touched down near Cedar Run.

"At one point, the rain was going sideways," he said. "I had never seen that before."

The police department was swamped with emergency calls due to "multiple" lightning strikes throughout the township, including a roof fire at the Ocean County Board of Social Services building on Hathaway Road, Dellane said.

The fire was confined to the roof and quickly extinguished, he said.

The National Weather Service Tuesday night confirmed that a tornado did touch down at the intersection of Route 9 and Oak Avenue around 10:05 a.m. Tuesday.


The NWS said the tornado was 50 to 100 yards wide and two miles long. It was packing winds between 75 to 85 miles per hour, which ranks it an EF0 on the Fujita scale that measures tornado intensity.

The tornado "lifted" near the intersection of Hilliard Boulevard Avenue and Beach Avenue. It toppled trees, ripped off sections of roof on churches and downed power lines.