September 28, 2026

Dear Friends,

I want to thank our community for coming together during the storm, particularly those who stayed in and stayed off the roads. Ocean City has not seen many precedents to the water levels and wind that we saw over so many tide cycles.

The city team is continuing to clean up and assess damage from the storm. All bridges and streets are open, and no further flooding is in the forecast.

We have opened our Shelter Road Recycling Center six days a week for residents to drop off bulk and storm-damaged material. The facility will be open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Shelter Road is off of Tennessee Avenue, which intersects Bay Avenue near 22^nd Street. We are bringing in dumpsters to accept the material. Please be careful driving in this area, which includes playing fields for our students.

Our regular trash and recycling pickup service will operate on a normal schedule, including yard and vegetative waste placed at curbside. The city team will be assisting with these services. Please be patient with curbside pickup and with dropoff at Shelter Road, as volume is expected to be high.

Public Works vehicles are working to clear sand and other material from our streets.

Our police and fire teams did respond to many disabled vehicles and a handful of lithium-ion battery fires in electric vehicles, and I’m told that remains a risk for any lithium-ion electric vehicle, e-bike, scooter or battery-operated tool submerged in or damaged by salt water. Please be aware of this risk and take precautions to avoid a fire.

Despite our warnings, many people lost vehicles during unnecessary travel. Our police stopped many vehicles during the height of the flooding, and asked those not responding to an emergency to go back home. Driving during these flooding events poses a danger not only to the drivers and their vehicles, but also to properties damaged by their wake. City Council and I will ask our police chief and solicitor to look at the potential of a local ordinance with penalties for reckless driving through floodwaters.

All of our pumping stations throughout town were operational and effective during the storm. Without them, floodwaters of the level we saw this weekend would have taken days to drain. The newly elevated Roosevelt Boulevard remained above the floodwaters and provided a reliable evacuation route during the storm.

The city’s high-water rescue vehicles were a critical resource during the flooding. They responded to fires and medical emergencies throughout the weekend. On Saturday, they were able to transport patients from flooded areas to EMS teams in Upper Township, where we had established a mutual aid agreement.

It’s too preliminary to assess beach erosion, but a team from the NJDEP’s Office of Coastal Engineering was on our beaches today doing post-storm surveys. Thanks in large part to our recent replenishment project, the ocean did not breach our dune system at any point. Without that, damage to property could have been substantial. That’s the intent of the beach replenishment program.

I will continue to update everyone as needed as we move forward together.

Warm regards,

Jay A. Gillian
Mayor

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