With life returning the normal after the most recent of this year's natural disasters — a snowstorm on Oct. 29 — knocked out power for a majority of northern New Jersey, residents and Bernards Township officials alike are piecing together the events of before, during and after the surprise snowfall.

Township Adminstrator Bruce McArthur on Saturday estimated that roughly 45 of the town's job has been done to collect branches and downed trees that fell within the public right away of township-owned streets. Even on Saturday around noon, a township Department of Public Works truck was out picking up and mulching debris on Lake Road.

McArthur said he has scheduled a meeting with the township's DPW for Tuesday to try to finalize a plan.

"It is important to note that we are picking up debris only that originated in the public right of way," McArthur said. "piles dragged curbside will be left in place." He said the county is in a similar position as far as removing debris from county roads.

Following the storm, the township website cautioned residents to be patient, estimating that the storm debris cleanup would take weeks to complete given the DPW's limited manpower.

ADDED: The cleanup also has resulted in mountains of mulch, which Mayor John Malay said are piled at Pleasant Valley Park, in the area of the town pool, at Harry Dunham Park, and at the Pill Hill landfill.

Malay said residents can pick up mulch themselves from the park — at any time — and at the Pill Hill Road facility when it is open. He said no municipal punch card is needed to pick up mulch. He also said the ample supplies are being used at local parks. He said the township previously invested in a truck that mulches limbs and brush, and it has been working overtime.

"We are trucking mulch out to make room for more, trying taking to facilities that will take it for free," McArthur on Monday said of the growing supply of mulch. Ultimately, McArthur said the town may have to dispose of the vegetative waste, since the takers of such materials have an oversupply of materials.

"We are grinding about 500-cubic yards of material daily for weeks now…that is about 16 30 yard containers," McArthur said. "We have placed temporary stock piles in a variety of locations which will be removed as soon as we are able."

There have been instances of private contractors illegally dumping chips, which exacerbates the problem of getting rid of the mounds of mulched material, he said.

Other officials are dissecting preparation and response efforts to the October snowstorm in the hope that such a widespread disaster can be prevented in the future.

Township Health Officer Lucy Forgione told Patch that, in addition to putting safety information on the township website regarding what foods to keep and throw away following a lengthy power outage, the Bernards Township Health Department had to go inspect approximately 300 different restaurants after the storm to ensure that they were following safe, health-conscious protocol following the storm

“We literally had to go door-to-door to make sure that spoiled food was destroyed, that shelves were bleached and that spoiled food items were not left on the shelves,” said Forgione.

Almost a week after the storm, one resident without power who was charging his computer at the Starbucks at the Riverwalk Center, commented that he would have donated his frozen food to charity if he had known to spoil during such a lengthy period without electricity.

Mike Shimsky, Administrative Sergeant with the Bernards Township Police Department and the township’s Office of Emergency Management Coordinator, said township police had played a major role in ensuring safety and trying to facilitate power restoration — at least as quickly as conditions would allow — following the snowstorm.

Shimsky said the police department had handled several hundred calls from residents and had officers working around the clock with township officials and representatives from Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) from the time the storm hit, until the last residents had their power restored nine days later.

“There was a lot of frustration by residents in the town not having power. The Office of Emergency Management, as well as the township committee, was communicating daily with JCP&L,” said Shimsky. “Unfortunately, people were frustrated with the power company and they were taking it out on us. We did everything within our power to hasten along JCP&L’s response. When they got here was when they got here; it wasn’t anything that we had any control over.”

Still, some residents found themselves unhappy with the delay. Local resident John Burns waited nearly a week before power was restored to his home. He said he felt that his and other neighborhoods could have had power restored more quickly.

“I heard from somebody that when it came time to getting the power up on our street, it was a five-to-ten-minute job,” said Burns. “I don’t know what they had to do upstream of that power, but if it was only that quick a job, you’d think there’d be some kind of overall assessment and we could get the (easy to resolve neighborhoods) back quick.”

Burns did note that wet snow falling on the trees, which still had most of their leaves, weighed down branches and enhanced the destruction caused by the storm. However, he said he also believes those conditions might have been at least partially prevented.

“People seemed to know that this was going to be a problem in advance,” said Burns. “With that kind of knowledge in hand, maybe they could be looking at trees in advance, and do something before the disaster hits. You’re not gonna catch it all, but you can catch a lot of it.”

Shimsky agreed with that notion, stating that the Office of Emergency Management does take precaution before situations like this occur to assess the risk of damage.

“The OEM is to do a risk analysis to determine how we can lessen that risk. You talk about an act of nature, a snowstorm in October where, if that storm had occurred two months later, it would have been nothing. You would have blinked and it would have been over,” said Shimsky. “It was the leaves on these trees that took these trees down. The only thing that we can do is prepare for the response. We kind of kick into response mode. There’s not too much we can do to mitigate Mother Nature coming down on us.”

Shimsky did say, however, that the township is continuing to enhance its communication tactics in the event of an emergency since Hurricane Irene in August. The township has already done so by incorporating alerts into social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as making reverse 911 calls to residents and broadcasting AM radio storm updates.

Residents can best help themselves—and each other—by looking out for one another during an emergency.

“We enjoy having a close-knit community in this town, and people look out for one another,” said Shimsky.

Meanwhile, state Assemblyman Jon Bramnick (R-District 21), who will be a state representative for Bernards Township as of January, has said he kept pressure on power company officials to speed a response right after the storm. Following his re-election early this month, he said he will join state regulatory officials in pressing for answers from JCP&L for why outages lasted so long for customers of that power company.

Linda Sadlouskos contributed to this story.