SHIP BOTTOM, N.J. (AP) — With much of the Eastern Seaboard in the path of a rare behemoth storm, residents of the nation’s most densely populated corridor contemplated whether to heed dire warnings of torrential rain, high winds and up to 2 feet of snow.

‘‘You know how many times they tell you, ‘This is it, it’s really coming and it’s really the big one,’ and then it turns out not to be?’’ said Alice Stockton-Rossini as she packed up to leave her home a few hundred yards from the ocean in Ship Bottom, N.J.