Damaged wires are surveyor’s specialty

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Boardwalks always have been susceptible to fires.
Still, the mayor of one Shore town said the blaze that ripped through the boardwalk and dozens of businesses in Seaside several weeks ago was “a wake-up call” because of its cause — electrical wiring corroded and compromised by salt water.

Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr., called for an inspection of his town’s boardwalk this week.

“We’re going to make sure that everything that’s under there is either being used and brought up to code, or not being used and taken out,” Troiano said. “We’d probably be doing (the survey) if it wasn’t for the fire, but we probably wouldn’t be doing it now.”

Tom Catanese, the founder, president and CEO of Power Survey — a Kearny company that scans the streets of cities for faulty wiring that creates a public danger — said any business that took on seawater from Sandy should follow Wildwood’s lead.

Catanese said the fire in Seaside wasn’t the first post-Sandy electrical problem to pop up, and it won’t be the last.

“That salt just wreaks havoc on cable insulation,” he said.

His company has clients around the world. And while he does not currently work in any New Jersey municipalities, Catanese said he’s finding such issues in another Sandy-ravaged location — New York City.

“Every night, we find cable that has been chewed away or corroded by salt,” he said. “And not just salt: water and the elements, vibration and age.”

Much of Catanese’s business, unfortunately, comes after tragedy strikes. In fact, the business was born after the untimely death of a doctoral student in Manhattan. The woman was walking her dogs in 2004 when she came in contact with an electrified metal plate hiding the frayed and deteriorating wiring inside a utility box. The shock killed her.

At the time, Catanese was working out of the SRI Sarnoff labs, in Princeton. The utility company in New York asked him to help officials there figure out how to find problems like these before they do harm.

It took two years of research and development, but Catanese eventually developed a truck-mounted system that can be used to scan the streets and surrounding public areas for electrical malfunctions.