Red Bank and Shrewsbury Hurricane Sandy Update

Now, residents wait for daybreak to assess the damage.

Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey at around 8 p.m. Monday night, flooding coastal towns and causing major power outages throughout the state with heavy and sustained winds that still persist now, even as the first hurricane to ever hit the state as a catergory one makes its way past New jersey and into Pennsylvania and New York.

In Red Bank and Shrewsbury, a combined 5,500 people are without power, according to Jersey Central Power and Light's Outage map. In Red Bank, the total is an estimated 3,885. In Shrewsbury, 1,605 residents, or more than half the town's population, were without power as of JCP&L's most recent update.

According to the Associated Press, an estimated 6.2 million people throughout the east coast were without power due to Sandy. In all, 16 deaths have been blamed on the storm as of early Tuesday morning, including six in New Jersey, though that number could rise in the following days.

Police and fire departments in both towns spent much of the night responding to calls and trying to mitigate potential dangers as they waited for the worst of the storm to pass.

Late Monday night, Red Bank Police Capt. Darren McConnell said police had closed a number of borough roads made impassable by downed power lines and felled trees. As of that time, however, no injuries had been reported, he said via a text message.

On Monday, Mayor Pat Menna signed a declaration of emergency, ordering all borough businesses closed by 5 p.m. and restricting all non-emergency driving. The order is in effect through Tuesday.

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