New Jersey Baby Boomer

Hurricane Irene and the storms that have followed have been devastating for many of us in New Jersey, and for many in the States in the Northeast that surround us. It seems to be never-ending!

Our home is not in a flood zone, we are victims of poorly designed drainage when a new road was put in. We have been fighting battles against water coming into our home more times than I like to think this past Spring and Summer…most recently with Irene. Many years ago, water naturally passed by the property on each side and found it’s way to the lake if too much came from the woodlands across the street from us. When a new road was put in a year or so before we moved in, the “brilliant” design was to have water come across the road directly toward our driveway under the road, then make a right angle turn to go down the road a bit, then a pipe was put in to carry the water to the lake in back of our home. When there is a spring thaw then a LOT of rain, or a Hurricane, or just a lot of rain in general, this is not adequate, and the water finds it’s way down our driveway, down the steps to the walkway to our house, and would come in the front door if my husband, who now has heart troubles, and son, did not set up sandbags to divert it, and seal a board into the door frame to keep standing water out. That’s exactly how things are as I type this, because we are tired of setting it up over and over again. We’re leaving it this way until the Town does the “promised” fix, or until the many tropical depressions and storms racked up in the Atlantic pass.

In spite of all the difficulty we are facing, we know others who are experiencing much much more, they have lost their homes, or all of their possessions in the basement and on first floor. Some have homes that are no longer habitable. My sister had to be evacuated from her home, water filled the basement. As much as we are thankful that things aren’t worse, cleanup is tedious, tiresome, and frankly depressing. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who have been through so much more than we have.

It seems trivial to compare the flooding situation many have been experiencing here in New Jersey to what has been happening in Japan, but both show the devastating power of water. We have spent the last few weekends preparing for potential runoff problems (big ones) on our property after heavy snows all winter, snow-melt saturating our soils and then heavy rains washing what is left of the snow from the hills across the street from us…across the road…to the lake where it wants to go, not where the designers of the “fine” drainage system on our street wants it to go…at 2 right angles then down to the lake. We are long overdue taking this situation to our Town to be fixed, just asking isn’t enough. They did try a couple of minor fixes, none adequate, and there used to be years between incidents (we’ve been here for going on 27 years). The last flooding was just last Spring, so they are getting closer together, and we are getting older and less able to keep up. We had hoped to retire here, it’s a small, cozy home on a lake, but if this isn’t fixed, we’re not sure what we’ll do.

But then we look at the news and see what is happening in Japan, and our hearts break, it makes what we are experiencing look so small. Our thoughts and prayers are with those in Japan, and those not far from us in New Jersey who experienced much more than we did, thanks to some carefully placed sand bags by my son.

Here is a short video clip we took of a river in Butler, NJ, not to far from us, video taken March 12th:

It seems like nothing is immune from being tainted by politics, even the beauty of a holiday snowstorm.  New Jersey Governor Christie has to defend going away on a vacation with his family….a vacation he promised to his children that coincided with the Lieutenant Governor,  Kim Guadagno, former Morris County Sheriff being away on a Cruise.  She asked for special permission for time off to go on this cruise with her family, including her father, who is gravely ill with stage 4 cancer.  Who would have known that there was going to be a major snowstorm during that time?  And why does a governor have to be smeared because he wasn’t present during the storm?

There are plans made well in advance for storms, and the Governor generally doesn’t run a plow.  Technology allows the governor to be in constant communication.

For us, it was just a pretty snowstorm, but for others, there is good reason for upset as their streets were not plowed for days, and emergency vehicles cannot get to homes during times like this.  But does this mean someone has to be blamed?

I hope some of you out there are enjoying the snow, that none of you were harmed by it (share your story in a comment if so), and wish you all a Happy New Year.

This past weekend we had incredible amounts of rain only two weeks after a blizzard that dumped over 2 feet of snow in many places local to us here in our part of Northern New Jersey.  We are up in elevation a bit, and had more than some, and those even higher had even more.

But back to the flooding…our flooding.  We were having a fairly quiet Saturday at home, but I was nervous, because there was a LOT of snow on the mountain across the street from us, and a LOT of rain falling.  My husband set up something to divert water down the side of our house should the torrent come toward us that I told him about…he hasn’t been home for the two other times we’ve had this experience.  As evening came, I noticed the first signs that we may be in trouble, water was no longer being held back in the low spot in the woods, but was beginning to stream across the property across the street, we ate dinner, and suddenly my husband said “water is coming in under the door”, out he dashed with my son  and they spent the next approximately 6 hours keeping drains cleared and diverting water.  I have other pictures for this post, but did show some night shots of water up against our house at http://weedsandseedswap.com. Amazingly, we were able to keep it at bay, but not without a lot of stress and exhaustion, and with the help of the town DPW that was overwhelmed with problems throughout the Township. Things have cleaned up nicely, I was able to throw bedding and towels up against the inside of the door to hold water out, and as of today, all is clean and dry inside, I have no concern about mold because I’ve worked hard to do the things to prevent it…a friend did a nice post about this that you may find helpful at this link.

Sunday after we had done all the cleaning we could, we went “flood hunting”, I didn’t take as many pictures as I would have liked to, but these ones were just down the hill from us in Bloomingdale, you see the river raging past houses, some houses were partly immersed as we passed, others just up to the edge of the home…even as I stood taking the pictures, the water that you see overlapping onto the parking lot spread more and more, we left quickly, not wanting to wait and see how much area it finally covered. Only a couple of blocks away roads were completely closed due to flooding.

Here are the pictures, and my hope that all of you that have received far more damage than we have will receive the help you need.

If you use these pictures for any reason, kindly give credit to newjerseybabyboomer.com, it would be appreciated!