A large holiday party ended abruptly Saturday night when a second-story deck collapsed and plunged 10 feet onto a concrete patio, injuring more than 30 people.
The Point Pleasant Beach police said that 11 to 25 people were on the 12-by-20-foot wooden deck at the rear of the two-story beachfront house at 2 Delaware Avenue when it gave way around 9:25 p.m. Several people were briefly pinned in the rubble. Emergency workers from Point Pleasant Beach and several surrounding towns arrived and set up a triage area to assist them.
Thirty-three people were taken to local hospitals and treated for injuries ranging from lacerations to sprains. By Sunday afternoon, only one woman remained hospitalized, at the Jersey Shore Medical Center in Neptune, N.J., where she was recovering from surgery, according to a police spokesman.
After an inspection, town officials said the deck did not violate any building codes, although it was nailed, rather than bolted, to the house. Bolting is now required, but because of its age, the deck was grandfathered under an old law that did not require bolting. The house's owners, identified by tax records as Myron and Malcolm Silverman of Atlantic Highlands, N.J., could not be reached for comment. Several telephone calls to their home yesterday were not answered.
The cedar-shake house had been leased by Marc Lydon, the police said. Mr. Lydon, who appeared shaken today as he walked around the property, would not comment.
Red, white and blue balloons fluttered in the offshore breeze along with yellow police tape that kept onlookers at bay as Mr. Lydon and others cleaned up after the party.
''Everything is fine, we are all safe and that's the important thing,'' a woman said as she left the house with a suitcase. ''We certainly won't forget this one.''
Guests described the gathering as an annual party held by young professionals who stay at the house on summer weekends. Several kegs of beer were on tap, and music played as some people danced under a disco ball and lights, a participant said. Most of the several hundred partygoers were on the beach playing volleyball or relaxing when the deck fell, she added. ''The music stopped suddenly and then people started running from the house and onto the street,'' said Joann Grillo, 46, a neighbor.
''It was so sudden -- one minute the deck was there and the next minute it was on the ground,'' said a guest, Lisa Hoskins, 36, a corporate sales representative from Hoboken. ''There were no screams, but everyone started moving away quickly.''
The Point Pleasant Beach police chief, Daniel J. DePolo, said his department was treating the incident as an accident and had received no complaints about the party or the tenants before the collapse.
''This was not an animal house or a problem spot,'' he said. ''Several mature adults and business professionals rented the property and they were not causing any problems.''
After the inspection, the house was temporarily closed by the police. ''It was an old structure with some rot and the collapse damaged part of the roof,'' Chief DePolo said. ''It was a safety precaution to close the house.''
Mayor Jack E. Pasola said council members would meet this week and review the town code provisions governing how decks are built and checked.
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