Blizzard batters Cape Region
A storm that dumped up to 19 inches of snow across Sussex County as it swept up the East Coast on Sunday into Monday knocked out power, shut down roads and closed schools and other public services.
“Most of the county got pretty much 12 to 19 inches,” Alex Staarmann, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said the morning of Monday Feb. 23 as the storm was winding down.
The National Weather Service as of Monday morning had not completed analyzing data to determine if the storm was technically a blizzard, which would require sustained winds in excess of 35 mph for at least three hours and visibility of less than a quarter mile.
The storm began as a low pressure system Sunday morning over Carolinas, Staarmann said. It rapidly increased in strength as it moved northeast, first affecting Sussex County in the form of rain.
A quarter to three tenths of an inch of rain fell before turning over to wet snow between noon and 1 p.m., he said. The stronger winds followed. The storm had swept off the coast overnight Sunday into Monday.
There was less snow in some areas near the coast where there was more rain before turning to snow, said Staarmann, who noted the Fenwick Island area in Sussex County received 10 to 12 inches of snow.
Snow totals were recorded at 19.3 inches in Bethel, 19 inches four miles north of Georgetown and in Seaford, 18.5 in Selbyville, 18 in Lewes, 16.2 in Milton and 9.7 in Dagsboro, he said.
Highest recorded wind gusts were 62 mph in Dewey Beach, 58 mph in Lewes and 46 mph at the Indian River Inlet, Staarmann said.
The highest sustained winds were 28 mph around midnight in Georgetown, although areas close to the ocean and bays saw sustained winds of 35 to 40 mph at times, he said.
It was the worst storm to hit Sussex County since January 2022, Staarmann said.
Gov. Matt Meyer issued a Level 3 driving ban for Sussex County that began Sunday and continued into Monday. The public was prohibited from travelling as driving was difficult, if not impossible, at times. The ban limits travel to only first informers, essential utilities and public works personnel.
Delaware Electric Co-operative lost power to 60,000 customers, about half its total of 122,000 homes and businesses, during the storm, Jeremy Tucker, its manager of marketing and communications, said Monday morning.
The company’s efforts to restore service were slowed as it had to pull crews out of the field for their safety for a couple of hours overnight during the peak of the storm, Tucker said.
“We are working as fast as we can to restore power,” he said. “Nobody wants to be without power, especially during the winter.”
Additional crews from other utilities and other private firms and a dozen tree cutting companies have been called in to assist, but it will still be a couple of days before power is restored to all customers, Tucker said.
The Delaware Department of Transportation is helping repair crews to reach power lines where roads remained unpassable late Monday morning, he said. The co-operative serves rural areas of Sussex and Kent counties.
In recent years new power lines were installed underground to reduce the risk of outages, Tucker said. Fallen trees and limbs were responsible for nearly all of the outages from the latest storm.
The widespread damage to the power grid is the most since an ice storm in 1994 and the widespread outages rival back-to-back blizzards in February 2010 that knocked out power to 23,000 customers, Tucker said.
“It was a rough night,” Dewey Beach Town Manager Bill Zolper said in an email Monday morning. “Our Police and Maintenance Team did their best responding to calls and trying to keep some streets clear last night. The storm is not over and recovery will take time.”
Zolper asked residents to have patience, as traffic lights were out, and trees and power lines were down across the town.
Sussex County Emergency Management, in coordination with the Delaware Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross-Delmarva Chapter, announced a shelter opening early Monday at Sussex Central Middle School (the former Sussex Central High School), at 26026 Patriots Way in Georgetown.
“This storm is delivering as promised, and that’s going to present us with significant challenges for the next 12 to 18 hours, at least,” county Director of Public Safety Robert W. Murray Jr. said in a statement issued Sunday. “Now is not the time to go out site-seeing and joy riding, so we urge the public to stay inside, stay off the roads, and stay tuned to media for ongoing updates.”
Kevin Conlon came to the Cape Gazette with nearly 40 years of newspaper experience since graduating from St. Bonaventure University in New York with a bachelor's degree in mass communication. He reports on Sussex County government and other assignments as needed.
His career spans working as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers in upstate New York, including The Daily Gazette in Schenectady. He comes to the Cape Gazette from the Cortland Standard, where he was an editor for more than 25 years, and in recent years also contributed as a columnist and opinion page writer. He and his staff won regional and state writing awards.
Conlon was relocating to Lewes when he came across an advertisement for a reporter job at the Cape Gazette, and the decision to pursue it paid off. His new position gives him an opportunity to stay in a career that he loves, covering local news for an independently owned newspaper.
Conlon is the father of seven children and grandfather to two young boys. In his spare time, he trains for and competes in triathlons and other races. Now settling into the Cape Region, he is searching out hilly trails and roads with wide shoulders. He is a fan of St. Bonaventure sports, especially rugby and basketball, as well as following the Mets, Steelers and Celtics.
