STAFFORD — If you were trying to get home Tuesday afternoon on Route 72 and found yourself trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic stretching as far as the eye could see, you probably had a few questions — and maybe a few choice words. Some of those words may have been in the salty category.
Social media lit up as thousands of frustrated drivers tried to figure out what was happening. Was there an evacuation? A major accident? Some kind of end-of-days event?
The answer, thankfully, was far less dramatic.
No zombie apocalypse descended on Southern Ocean County. No disaster movie scenario unfolded. Instead, the massive backup was caused by emergency road work that landed squarely in the middle of the afternoon rush, snarling traffic and testing the patience of locals across the area. Talk about an inopportune time for cones and equipment to be blocking a major lane of travel.
Police said Atlantic City Electric had been contracted to perform the emergency repairs and that the New Jersey State Police was aware of the work. But Stafford Township Police Captain Russell Griffin told Jersey Shore Online that their department was not notified until the road work was already well underway and traffic had backed up for miles.
Judging by social media posts, the delays were brutal. Some drivers reported trips home that normally take 15 minutes stretched to an hour — or even two. Some were sitting in the car after leaving the new ShopRite, now dealing with melting ice cream and soon-to-be rotting veggies in their back seats.
Others reported seeing drivers attempting to turn around in the center median near the Manahawkin Bay Bridge in hopes of escaping the bottleneck.
The traffic mess did not stay contained to Route 72. Delays spilled onto Route 9 and into parts of Barnegat, including West Bay Avenue.
The good news: The work has since been completed, and traffic is moving more normally again.
Still, for a few hours Tuesday, getting through Manahawkin felt less like a commute and more like survival training.
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