After new windmill falls off The Windmill, iconic NJ restaurant pushes ahead (PHOTOS)

The windmill at the Windmill will rise again.

Owners are working to figure out exactly why the new, LED-light-lit windmill blades at the original Windmill restaurant in Long Branch came crashing down into the street Monday night.

But Steven Levine and his sister, Rena Levine Levy, said they're grateful no one was hurt — and they plan to have the blades atop the Windmill again as soon as possible.

"It could have been such a terrible tragedy," Rena Levine Levy said. "We had customers and employees inside the building. If a car had been in that road, it could have been terrible. But it wasn't a tragedy — it's just a major inconvenience."

The owners said they planned to open the restaurant as usual Tuesday morning at 10:30 — even windmill-less.

"We wouldn't want to disappoint our customers," Steven Levine said.

In October, the family replaced the blades of the iconic windmill that had been in place for 52 years. Lights that had been added a decade back were falling into disrepair, and the windmill suffered damage during superstorm Sandy.

The new blades include programmable LEDs that can be lit in different colors for different occasions. They've been blue and white to celebrate Monmouth University, and green and red for Christmas.

Steven Levine  said "we're all looking for excuses" after the fall — but the fall simply shouldn't have happened, he said.

Monday night was a windy one — Rena Levine Levy suggested it might have been enough to put the new blades to the test.

But the Oceanport station of the NJ Weather & Climate Network, located about 3 miles away from The Windmill, in the infield of Monmouth Park, only picked up peak gusts of 34 mph Tuesday morning. There have been 11 days since Oct. 1 that winds topped 30 mph.

New Jersey meteorologist Dan Zarrow said building damage wouldn't normally be expected until somewhere above 40 mph, and the National Weather Service's definition of a "severe" wind that can cause damage is 58 mph (50 knots).

"This should have withstood 110 mph winds," Steven Levine said.

His sister noted the original blades "obviously lasted a lot longer than this."

But Steven Levine said the frame of the new blades seems fine — he expects them to be hung back up as soon as possible, once the problem that let them fall is fond and dealt with.

Rena Levine Levy said the fall also damaged the railing and deck upstairs in the building, "so it's obvious that something happened."

"I imagine we're going to have quite a few people that will come by and see what happened," she said.