Damage Put At $30M
The Great Flood of 2007, originally uploaded by john faherty photography.
[While the above photo was NOT from 2005, the damage was similar. So two years later same problems, no relief.]
New Jersey remained under a state of emergency Monday even as most floodwaters receded, and elected officials asked President Bush to declare a federal disaster in areas where 3,500 people had to leave their homes.
In Passaic County, about 400 people – mostly in Little Falls and Paterson – left their homes Monday, bringing to 700 the number of county residents who had evacuated since Friday.
Acting Governor Codey estimated the property damage in the state would exceed $30 million, the cost of repairs seven months ago when Tropical Depression Ivan swept the western and central counties.
“There’s obviously severe damage done to these homes and it’s going to take time and money to put those homes back to where they were before this weekend,” he said after a helicopter tour of some of the hardest-hit areas in western New Jersey. “Our people will be on the streets in the next several weeks to help them rebuild their lives.”
Codey declared a state of emergency Sunday. If the Bush administration approves the request of New Jersey’s congressional representatives to declare a disaster, it would make towns and individuals eligible for federal grants and loans in the coming months.
Most rivers – the Hackensack, Ramapo, Saddle, Pequannock, Pompton, Delaware and others – receded after rising to well above flood stage Sunday or early Monday.
But the Passaic remained the monster that everyone had to fight as Monday waned.
The river continued to rise, forcing road closures and evacuations in Little Falls, West Paterson, Totowa, Paterson and Hawthorne. It was expected to crest at 10.9 feet – its flood stage is 7 feet – around 8 p.m. Monday, so emergency crews had no choice but to press on, rowing boats and driving high-riding, heavy-duty trucks to pick up residents in low-lying neighborhoods of Passaic and Morris counties.
“The flood stage is higher than [Tropical Storm] Floyd in 1999,” said Maryann Trommelen, deputy coordinator for the Passaic County Office of Emergency Management.
No deaths or injuries were reported, according to State Police Superintendent Rick Fuentes, and authorities said there were no claims of looting or other criminal activity. But the hardships were strenuous enough for all those whose communities lined the river’s spreading reach.
In Little Falls, by 5 p.m. the Passaic had swallowed several blocks of the Singac neighborhood to just a block short of Main Street. Rep Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, arrived to survey the damage. As he spoke to emergency responders, the water began to circle his feet.
“We need the federal government to get some help into New Jersey,” he said. “We need assistance.”
Amid that sense of urgency, though, some residents were displaying grim bravado, defying a mandatory evacuation order.
“I’m staying,” said Al Baskinger, a resident on Bogart Street. At noon, the water had not yet reached his home. “I have nowhere to go.”
It was an attitude that frustrated Dennis Steinberger and Ron Stell, firefighters and public works employees, riding in the bucket of a front-end loader as they plowed through the water to rescue residents. Stell and his partner said they had removed about 25 people from their homes by noon, but then there were the recalcitrants.
“We try to convince them, but they don’t want to leave their property,” Stell said.
In Paterson, some 20 people needed no prompting in agreeing to evacuation in two boats. City staff opened two staging areas for flood victims Monday afternoon and were considering opening a third.
Mayor Joey Torres, touring East Main Street, said back-flooding sewers also were a real worry.
“Since we’re in a valley, most of the outflow [and] the garbage comes in,” Torres said. “If it compromises and clogs up our storm drain, it makes matters even worse, and you have flash flooding.”
On Watson Street, just north of the Straight Street bridge, resident Tiburcio Irizarry said the flood was the worst he had seen since 1984, when fish swam in the basement of a house he owns and water crested close to the second story. Monday morning, his two basement pumps had been working for nearly 12 hours with little effect.
“I throw out the water, it comes in the other side,” he said.
On East Holsman Street, 11 houses were turned into islands by the flood. Most of the neighborhood’s residents had already left of their own accord. But some needed to return for clothes, so resident Angel Rosado cobbled together a raft of a wooden pallet and seven car tires and ferried his neighbors down Bergen Street to their homes.
“If it keeps going up, everybody’s going to have to leave,” Rosado said.
In Totowa, residents of 30 homes voluntarily evacuated, said Allen DelVecchio, coordinator of the Office of Emergency Management. Authorities closed Riverview Drive along the Passaic River and several side streets and set up a shelter at the civic center on Union Boulevard.
The flood was the first emergency to be handled by the Passaic Valley Office of Emergency Management, a cooperative initiative among Little Falls, Totowa and West Paterson. Officers agreed that the response had gone smoothly.
“It worked out to the betterment of everybody,” said George Galbraith, West Paterson OEM director and superintendent of the West Paterson Department of Public Works. But, he estimated, about 12 percent of West Paterson was under water.
Compounding the flooding along the Passaic was the aftermath of rampages along feeder streams in the hill country to the north.
The Army Corps of Engineers distributed 50,000 sandbags throughout North Jersey; the Bergen County Office of Emergency Management provided another 5,200 sandbags.
Nevertheless, just in Oakland, at least 189 residences and businesses suffered damage from the Ramapo River.
“My house is trashed,” said Lew Levy, chairman of Oakland’s flood commission, who lives on Lakeview Terrace. “I’m planning on probably having to live in a hotel for the next two to three weeks.”
Brian Hague, a spokesman for Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney, said many people in Oakland chose to stay home for the duration.
“However, in those homes and businesses there are no utilities,” he said.
In Wayne, emergency workers evacuated about 200 people from 70 homes. Some said the damage appeared to be worse than in 1999, when the recovery from Tropical Storm Floyd went on for months. About 30 people spent Sunday night at the Red Cross shelter in the gym at Wayne Valley High School, said spokeswoman Cathy Derechailo, whose agency also had provided shelters in Paterson, Fairfield and Little Falls.
On Monday, the road behind the Willowbrook Mall remained partly closed and the NJ Transit park-and-ride lot at Mother’s was partly under water. But by noon, Route 23 in neighboring Pequannock – which had closed 24 hours earlier – was reopened, ending hours of detours for motorists.
In Pequannock, about 19 people were prepared to go home Monday night after they had stayed part of the weekend at a shelter at the Municipal Building. About 40 homes and 10 businesses nestled along the Pompton River were affected, and the majority of residents had left. But fire volunteers did have to rescue one resident – a black-and-white cat named Trumper – stuck on the roof of a submerged car.
In Lincoln Park, at least 200 homes and six business were affected, and 400 people left town.
While havoc was being played out in North Jersey, a good deal of government in Trenton had already come to a halt Monday, with parts of the State House under water and other buildings inaccessible. Non-essential state workers were told to stay home again today.
Also hard-hit were Hunterdon and Warren counties. Near Phillipsburg in Warren County, Codey on Monday empowered the state police to evacuate 400 people, adding to the 1,000 who had left Sunday. Officials said neighborhoods along the Delaware River were dotted by houses with water to their roofs and cars submerged.
“The Delaware River is calling the shots right now,” said one state police spokesman.
In total statewide, the rains forced partial closure of 40 state roads and complete closure of 20 others, said Brendan Gill, a state transportation spokesman.
Staff Writers Kathleen Carroll, Richard Cowen, Laura Fasbach, Shannon Harrington, Amy L. Kovac, John McAlpin, Tom Meagher, Allison Pries, Robert Ratish, Eman Varoqua and Lauren Villagran contributed to this article.
By Elise Young
Bergen Record – 4/5/2005