Gov. Christie Joins Local Officials For Storm Briefing In Sea Isle City

By Dan Wing

SEA ISLE CITY, N.J., (CBS) -- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie joined state officials in Sea Isle City Friday afternoon to give an update on the state's preparations for this weekend's storms.

Governor Christie breathing a sigh of relief, while passing along news that Hurricane Joaquin would likely stay off the coast and that the current storm doesn't look to be as bad as originally feared. Still he warned that power outages and moderate to major flooding could be seen in the state's four southern counties.

"We're still going to have moderate to major flooding in our four Southern Counties - Cape May, Atlantic, Cumberland, and Salem. So we need to be prepared for that and I believe these officials are prepared for whatever we're going to have to deal with, and I can tell that the state is well prepared for that as well," said Gov. Christie.

Christie says the lessons learned from Sandy and other past storms, have helped the state be ready for weekend's just like this.

"Unfortunately we've dealt with them before, we'll deal with them this time. Looks like we're dodging a bullet this time. Let's keep our fingers crossed that that continues for the next 24 to 48 hours. If it does we can count our blessings, because we know what happens when we don't get lucky. We've lived through that, and none of us want to live through that again," said Gov. Christie.

Christie says shelters will be made available if needed, and that all state assets are ready to be deployed where needed.