♪ Announcer: from NJPBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News," with Briana Vannozzi.

Briana: Hello and thanks for joining us.

I'm Joanna Gagis.

Briana Vannozzi is off.

Lawmakers have a snow day today but that's not why a can sometimes take years to pass a bill.

Plus, New Jersey is facing a nursing shortage appeared we will talk to the nursing Association about what can be done.

The story of the day is the blizzard that blanketed the state with snow.

We have with us Governor Mikie Sherrill on the line to talk about the states response.

Take you for being with us.

This is the first time the state had a statewide blizzard in more than 30 years.

What can you tell us about the impact we have seen on the state?

Gov.

Sherrill: It has been a huge impact as we were expecting.

One of the challenging things is the fact that this was a heavy, wet snow.

There was a lot of it.

We are called the Garden State because we have a lot of trees.

Many of them have come down.

I am so happy to report because of really good planning, the Board of Public utilities had reached out to all of our public utilities.

They brought in mutual aid.

We had over 5000 utility workers on the ground before the storm started.

We have restored over 250,000 people.

To power although we still have over 100,000 left.

We are hoping to get them back online within the next 24 to 48 hours.

Joanna: Depends where you live in the state in terms of what you are still seeing, in terms of the impact.

Some municipalities have dug their roads out, some have not.

When do you expect we will be dug out of this mess, and will be be back to business tomorrow?

Gov.

Sherrill: Well, we are working as quickly as possible.

As you can imagine, I have been really focused on this state -- the state roads.

The Turnpike is our main artery.

It is a critical road to keep open.

We have never shut it, I hope I never have to shut it, because that is a really dangerous situation.

Luckily, crews have been working around the clock to keep that open so emergency vehicles and utility vehicles can get around the state.

The garden state, we got in good shape north of Perth Amboy.

I think that is about to be where we are working south to make sure those roads are really in good shape, so people can get around.

The municipal roads are a challenge.

People need to exercise caution.

The state of emergency was lifted -- I'm sorry, the travel ban was lifted at noon today because the blizzard conditions, the white out conditions, we have seen those go away.

People still need to exercise a great deal of caution, because some of those municipal roads are still going to be under a foot or two of snow until municipalities can start to dig out.

Joanna: What can you tell us about the transit systems?

A lot of people take public transit to and from work.

Looks like most of everything shut down today.

People want to get back out as quickly as possible.

Gov.

Sherrill: And that is my goal for everyone.

And I'm happy and somewhat surprised to be reporting that as of tonight, Newark light rail and the river line are going to be opening up between 4:00 and 5:00.

The Hudson Bergen line will be opening around 6:00 on a modified schedule.

I think in previous storms, we have seen that stick out but we are trying to get everybody up and running as quickly as possible.

Check the New Jersey transit app for more details as we continue to open up transit.

Joanna: Transit has already been a struggle given the portal bridge turnover process.

Do you think we will be anywhere near anything normal this week?

Even in terms of that reduced service we have already seen?

Gov.

Sherrill: Right.

We had an extra convocation to all of this because as you know, the portal bridge, we were on time getting that accomplished.

So really worried about this weather event.

People were working overtime, covering switches so we did not lose any days, once the storm was over so we could get back to work.

We will be working to get back to that modified schedule and get work started again on that portal bridge so we can get that done as quickly as possible, to improve everybody's safety and reliability on the commute.

Joanna: This is your second massive storm in just under a month.

It's like baptism by fire here.

Is there anything you learned from the first one that you have applied to the second storm?

Gov.

Sherrill: Luckily, when you serve in the Navy, you sort of hope for the best but plan for the worst.

There is a lot of crisis management that goes on there.

That is exactly what we got to work on.

On my Inauguration Day, members of my team were being briefed by the weather service about what might be coming.

And then shortly thereafter, we started to have our routine of meetings with all of the groups that are involved in this type of emergency.

The operations emergency management with the state troopers, the Department of Transportation, New Jersey transit, the Turnpike.

And the state DPW, Department of Public Works, bringing everyone in.

And the Board of Public utilities so we can make sure we had a good understanding of where all of the problems might be.

And then as we went into the storm, getting constant updates on what it was looking like across the state.

For example, as we realized a lot of the storm was centered around areas that JCP N.L.

and A's were involved in, now PC and G has cut loose their mutual aid workers.

.

They have surged into those areas to get people's power back online as quickly as possible.

Because we have been working so closely with the New Jersey transit, getting those lines up tonight, which if you asked me a couple hours ago when I'm looking outside at two feet of snow, I would have been skeptical.

But we are getting that light rail up as quickly as possible and we will continue to announce openings as we go forward.

Joanna: Governor Mikie Sherrill, appreciate you coming on and talking with us today.

Gov.

Sherrill: Thank you so much.

Stay safe and have a good one.

Joanna: As New Jersey officials work to get the state back up and running, Raven Santana takes a closer look at the impact of this historic blizzard.

Raven: Jersey residents woke up to a winter wonderland and in many places, a winter emergency.

After a powerful overnight storm dumped more than a foot of snow across parts of the state, whipped by damaging winds.

>> We have multiple areas in the state that have gotten over 12 inches of snow.

Really, the bulk of that coming in a 12 hour period.

With that, we have had very high winds.

We had wind gusts above 60 miles per hour at the Atlantic City airport.

And of course, when you have a combination of snow with winds, that can lead to very dangerous conditions.

Lowing and drifting snow, as well as leading to reduced visibility, the white out conditions that you hear about.

And that is why the whole state was under a blizzard warning for the storm.

Raven: forecasters say snowfall totals are the highest New Jersey has seen in roughly a decade.

More than 130,000 homes and businesses were without power as heavy wet snow clung to trees and power lines before Strong winds took hold.

>> For the most part, this was a mostly snow event.

With that, it did start out as that of very heavy, wet snow.

As people are waking up today, and looking up the windows, you probably see a lot of the snow sticking to trees and power lines.

That is probably from the very beginnings of the storm.

The preliminary snow melts we see with this are the highest snow melts we have seen since the 2016 storm.

What was similar in that it had a lot of impacts, had a lot of wind.

The 2016 storm was a very slow moving nor'easter or coastal storm.

Whereas this one, for a nor'easter and coastal storm, this one was a pretty fast-moving one.

Raven: Governor Sherrill declared a state of emergency Sunday afternoon.

Schools across the state closed, a trouble ban went into effect overnight and public transit largely sat down -- shut down, while flights were canceled at the international Airport.

The New Jersey office of emergency management extended mandatory travel restrictions from 9:00 p.m.

Sunday until noon today.

While the travel restriction has ended, motorists are strongly encouraged to avoid unnecessary travel as hazardous conditions persist in some parts of the state.

>> After yesterday, we had 6.9 inches of snow on Sunday.

That was just enough to tie us for the record of the most snow on a Sunday in any winter, tying it with 2005, 2006.

Raven: Joe Martucci, owner of cup of Joe weather and drones says storms like this are becoming more frequent again after several relatively quiet winters.

>> We were -- we were in the golden era of snow from 2009 through 2016.

Kind of went away for a few years.

What we have seen since 2022, we might be back in this where we have seen a couple of snowstorms that have been -- if it is not statewide, most of the state, that has brought a good amount of snow into the region.

Raven: this storm differed from January's complex system that brought a messy mix of sleet, freezing rain, and rain.

>> The last storm, we got warmer and sought mixed precipitation.

The storm, we got colder and we saw rain and just snow.

Raven: state climatologist Dave Robinson says even as winters trend warmer overall, heavy snowstorms remain part of New Jersey's climate and winter is not over yet.

>> We are not done yet.

March -- January and February are on par with each other for the two snowiest months of the year.

December and March are on Par 4 about the second snowiest months, for the third or fourth snowiest months of the year.

In other words, we can still see snow in March that equals snow that we occasionally see in December's storms.

I'm not saying that's going to happen.

But this doesn't necessarily mark the last snowfall of the year.

Raven: officials say NJ transit service will remain suspended with a gradual return once crews can safely clear tracks and restore operations.

The governor is urging any residents experiencing power outages to contact their utility provider for updates and assistance.

For NJ Spotlight News, I am Raven Santana.

Joanna: Coming up, is New Jersey's legislative process broken?

Why are so many bills passed in the lame-duck session?

We will take a look, next.

>> Major funding for NJ Spotlight News is serving the insurance needs of residents and businesses for more than 100 years.

Joanna: New Jersey's process for passing laws can look different than other states depending on when the bill was written and how the legislature takes it up.

More often than not, bills sit drafted raid -- waiting to be heard by the legislature until the lame-duck session, the last few months of the legislative session before newly elected officials take over.

Objects editor Colleen O'Dea took a deep dive into this issue and how it impacts democracy in this state as part of our under the dome series.

She joins us now.

So great to talk to you.

It is a convoluted process that happens in New Jersey.

First walk us through how we understand the budgeting process to be laid out by the governor, and how these bills end up being written throughout the year.

Colleen: What happens is legislators come in at the beginning of a session and the sessions are two years long.

They do something called prefiling bills.

There are thousands and thousands of bills that are prefiled.

Some of them will never even get a hearing.

Others will kind of get hearings and move through the process.

But what winds up happening often is the very end of the session, this lame-duck period after the November election that a lot of bills suddenly get pushed in, and other bills -- last year, there were 30 bills that were introduced in the last two months of the legislature.

Joanna: What do other states do that might be a more efficient and more democratic process in terms of spreading the hearings for these types of bills out, or for the full legislative session and compare that to New Jersey where they are cramming?

Colleen: There are many states that don't have a full year legislature.

We happen to be one of the seven or eight that do have a full year legislature.

Some of the things I heard from lobbyists and advocates I talked to for the story, some of the things they said that happens is many states will have combined committees.

Instead of having an assembly committee and a Senate committee, each hear a bill, each perhaps tweak the bill, then it has to go back from one house to another so the changes get agreed upon.

That other states will have a joint committee.

This way it is one bill, everybody can come out to one hearing as opposed to what often happens in the state legislature, where the bill is being heard in committees in both houses at the same time.

And someone told me the only way they can really manage that is if they were able to clone themselves.

That is one of the ways they think things would work better.

Another weight -- another way to improve transparency is some states, Nevada for instance, has locations where people can go and testify remotely.

People are allowed to testify at the start of a hearing or end of a hearing, so you don't have to be there for eight hours until the end of a hearing.

Discourages a lot of people from staying, because people have families, children to pick up, they have dinner to make.

That was another suggestion I heard.

Joanna: I know in your reporting on this topic, you spoke to a lot of advocates, community organizers and advocates who say this really minimizes democracy in a sense that it doesn't give the public enough opportunity to react to some of the decisions made.

It doesn't give the media time for scrutiny.

And even legislators and the governor often don't have the time for real meaningful consideration of the process.

What would they like to see changed in addition to some of what you explained?

Colleen: They say, sent a time limit for when you can introduce bills, and many states do that.

It may be saying you can't introduce legislation in lame-duck, or at least maybe make the end of November the cut off.

We saw bills that were introduced on January 4, on the same day -- excuse me, some bills introduced on January 8, the same day they would be heard in the committee.

If you are at that committee hearing, you could not see that piece of legislation.

.

It wasn't available on the legislature's website.

How can you make intelligent comments about a bill you haven't seen yet?

Then they are voted on on January 12, four days later.

There is just not enough time.

What advocates would like to see is make this a cut off on when legislation can be introduced, and certainly, bills being posted before they are heard and a committee, so that people have time to see what they are commenting on.

Joanna: People might say, this is just insiders complaining about the process.

But you laid out the numbers.

And just how many bills actually move in this final stretch.

It's staggering.

What are those numbers?

Colleen: 630 three bills were introduced in the last -- just about eight weeks, two months.

1100 were acted upon in that short time.

150, more than 150 were acted upon in both houses on that last day.

We had marathon sessions, about 7.5 hours in the assembly.

Three hours total in the Senate, but they had to keep waiting for the assembly to act.

They were pretty much all day as well.

Then we look at the governor's actions.

The governor signed 47 bills that were introduced at the last moment.

In that last lame-duck session.

123 on his last day.

225 in January.

That is 40% of the bills that were enacted, Murphy signed just in the last month.

Joanna: I want to switch gears quickly.

News came over the weekend after a lot of back-and-forth.

Was the facility purchased and rocks.

To house detainees or was it not?

?

They did receive confirmation that DHS purchased Delfin industrial to create an immigration detention facility.

What are we hearing from the -- I might mention all Republican counsel in response to that news.

Colleen: They are very upset.

They were essentially telling this company, we don't want this facility, we don't think it is appropriate in our community.

And not necessarily for political reasons.

This is not too far from a residential neighborhood.

It is kind of in the middle of nowhere in terms of being in Roxbury, New Jersey on Route 46.

It is a 470,000 square-foot facility that had apparently been on the market for a while by.

-- for a while.

The town offered tax breaks to help redevelop the property.

Joanna: 20 million, right?

Colleen: Right.

Because they don't want this facility there.

Yet all of their efforts just went ignored.

So they are very angry.

They are also upset with Congressman Tom Keene Junior who represents the town saying, they have been asking him for help and they don't think he did enough to try to prevent this from happening.

He says he has been working behind the scenes, and that he will continue to try to do whatever he can to make the process, or make this palatable to everyone.

But we don't know what's going to come from this at this point.

Joanna: Can the mayor said it was inconceivable and stunning that they received no communication from DHS throughout the process.

We have to leave it there.

Senior writer and projects editor Colleen O'Dea, thank you so much.

Colleen: Thanks so much.

Joanna: The state is facing a looming nursing shortage.

The numbers show we could be down 25,000 nurses by 2036.

The problem is not a new one but there hasn't been a real solution.

Joining us now is Peggy Farrell Dangerfield, president of the New Jersey State nurses Association to talk this through.

Thank you for being with us.

We have known about the shortage for years but can you help us understand how we got here?

Peggy: Nurses make up the largest segment of health care workforce.

We have known this was coming for a while.

As you said, her son has predicted a shortage in New Jersey of over 24,000 nurses by 2036.

Joanna: HERSA being?

Peggy: Health resources and services administration.

We know this will affect the health care needs of our residents and their only a few states that have a worse shortage predicted.

We knew this was coming for a while, but of course COVID-19 exacerbated the issue.

The pandemic made us look at the nurses who were working, and many left the profession, many retired at that point.

And it made an even more critical issue for the nursing shortage.

We also have an aging population.

And we know that as our residents age, they have more need for health care services.

And our nurses are also aging.

Nurses are retiring.

And that contributes.

We have high burnout rates.

In New Jersey, a nurse -- nurses face both burnout and stress, leading sometimes to early retirement, and oftentimes to career changes.

Joanna: Let me jump in real quick and ask you, you said there is an impact on patients.

We talk about this sometimes from a statistical point of view.

25,000 by 2036.

What is the impact on patients, if we get to this 2036 year and we haven't closed this gap?

Peggy: Well, without the nurses to staff, let's start with bedside nursing.

Without the nurses to staff hospital systems, the patients will -- the patients are getting older, they are more ill than when I started.

The acuity is higher.

With less nurses taking care of those patients, there are issues with their care.

And with setting priorities.

So nurses do have moral distress with prioritizing the care, and being able to give the care that they need.

We need to look at staffing, and we need to understand that staffing affects both patients and nurses.

So, studies have shown that adequate staffing in hospital systems lower morbidity, lower mortality, reduce reignition -- readmission rates, reduce errors, reduce infections, falls, and those things.

For nurses, it reduces burnout and stress.

It reduces turnover.

And it also reduces physical injury.

Joanna: And that burnout ends up becoming a snowball effect, when you already have a shortage and then you have nurses leaving because they are overburdened.

Let me ask you this.

We see there are a number of her sponsors.

Both from hospital systems like Barnabas Health that has -- that is developing a new nursing school.

And then there are legislators who are crafting legislation.

I want to ask your opinion.

What are the appropriate responses here?

What do you think actually solves this problem?

Peggy: We always looked to our legislature with the introduction of bills that support things.

I know if you want to look at both past and current legislation, one thing that was done in 2024 was we have a redemption program.

That helps with the nursing faculty.

Another issue with the pipeline for nurses is to ensure we have nursing faculty.

That law did increase the amount that a nurse faculty can redeem up to 50,000 over five years.

Joanna: Less burdened with debt when they do as they enter the field?

Peggy: Exactly.

Joanna: If you could just tell us what else you think is a great solution here?

Peggy: Academic practice partnerships where colleges and university partner with hospital systems to ensure there are clinical placements for nurses as they come through their educational program.

Staffing and patient protection bill, which is in the legislature right now, to mandate nurse-patient ratios so we don't have that moral distress, and we have adequate staff to care for our patients.

Joanna: Peggy Farrell Daingerfield, I'm so sorry, we have to leave it there but I appreciate you coming on.

Peggy: Thank you so much.

Joanna: That's going to do it for us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagis.

For the entire crew here at NJ Spotlight News, thanks for being with us.

Please stay safe and warm and we will see you back here tomorrow.

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