We have survived.
As we live only a block from the tidal part of the Hackensack River so our area had a voluntary evacuation….a voluntary evacuation? What’s the difference between that and a vacation? We did move the car out of the basement parking lot and filled a bunch of water bottles and, being campers, we have enough candles, flashlights, propane and the like to survive comfortably for weeks.
The Hackensack, despite the pictures below, got away fine, but some of the other towns in the are have some serious flooding ….maybe someday the powers that be will understand that dams only control flooding if they are drawn down so that they hold water during heavy rain…and of course developing in a flood plain is seldom a good idea. The powers that be will say that the rain was so severe no one could anticipate it (despite it being less severe then what meteorologists had forecast). Heard NJ Gov. Christie on the news on Thursday night saying he wasn’t going to open the flood gates at Pompton Lakes until he had convincing proof that drawing the lake down would lessen the flooding. How convincing off a proof do they need….though of course the problem is development in low lying flood prone areas. For many houses along the Pompton and Passiac this will be the third time they are being flooded in 5 months.
Still, as you can see, the flooding is impressive, though for the most part it’s of parks, parking lots and old buildings…things that can survive flooding.
Here’s some of the shots of the flooding around our area.
https://picasaweb.google.com/117725050850232707038/PostIreneAugust282011
Driving around to take these pictures I was amazed how many people blew thru non working traffic lights. With the storm it seemed like half the traffic lights were out. State law requires that if the traffic lights or controls are out of service or malfunctioning when you approach an intersection, you must come to a stop as you would for a stop sign. http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/dmanual/chapter04-manual.htm .
Update …a week later the parks and parking lots shown in these pictures are green with only a little mud and trash to show for the mess that was there previously.
