Virus or not, if you open Jersey Shore beaches, they'll come

SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J. (AP) — Somehow, after years of living underground and waiting for some unfathomable signal that it's time, cicadas suddenly know when it's time to surface and swarm.

Teenagers and college students apparently have that same ability when it comes to the Jersey Shore's beaches opening.

On Friday, local governments gave the signal and beachgoers returned to the sand at some of New Jersey's most popular beaches, including Seaside Heights and Point Pleasant Beach. Both were conducting what they considered trial-run openings to see how well crowds could be contained, and how well they adhered to social distancing and other measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Teens and young adults were particularly well-represented in Seaside Heights, which for generations has been the place to go the day after graduation, or pretty much any other time when sunshine and the opposite sex were priorities.

Yet despite the teen migration, things were decidedly under control at Seaside Heights, a place with a reputation for not always being so. It was, you may recall, the setting for the infamous MTV show “Jersey Shore.” On Friday, there were more families with children than Snooki wannabes.

“It feels real nice to be here; we've barely been out,” said Kate Shouldice of Toms River, who brought her children ranging in age from 8 to 3 to stroll the boardwalk. “It'll be nice when everything gets back to normal, and it feels like it's been doing that a little bit lately.”

“It feels good to be out,” echoed Pat Sullivan of Toms River. “After the spring we had, it's been brutal.”

The two beaches were among those that reopened a day after New Jersey's Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy gave guidance to shore towns on how to reopen their beaches safely...