Flood Waters In Neighborhood The Worst Ever (40 Years!)

Good afternoon again everyone. For those of you, who may have seen the movie, “The Day After Tomorrow,” and recall the ending, you may find my latest blog post ironic. During the course of the morning since my last post, the flood waters in the neighborhood swelled and grew to their worst levels in the 40 years I’ve lived there.

Consequently, we had to have the gas and electricity shut off, and ultimately evacuated. As I write this post to you, I’m situated in a hotel off Route 27. It was a very traumatic experience for me. Having to decide what to take was very difficult. Very stressful. I made sure that I took my mobile gadgets with me so that I would be still able to communicate via the blog, and more importantly, be able to access the internet, and contact people at work to let them know of my situation.

I also made sure that I took essentials such as the medications I take as well as some of the food I bought at the store the other day. Good thing I did that. Obviously I grabbed whatever clothes I could get to take with me for this excursion. My family drove through a lot of South Plainfield, Edison, and Metuchen. Traffic lights were out at a number of locations throughout the area we drove through. Some trees were down including a couple right in front df the hotel we’re staying in. Branches and leaves were scattered about as well. A few roads were also flooded.

Before we fled the house, rainfall totals had reached five inches, and the barometer fell to 28.64 inches, which is the lowest pressure ever recorded by my weather station. Winds weren’t really bad, but they were bad enough to knock out the power, and combine with the flooding to down trees. Winds are still whipping outside in the storm’s wake. The eye went through at about 9:00 AM this morning, and thankfully the second half of the storm was like I said it would be, uneventful.

Other areas in my neighborhood were also hit very hard. Some streets were flooded that I never though would be flooded. Spring Lake has overflowed its banks, and as a result, the high school football practice field was inundated, and that was just all I could see. There may be more casualties from this storm. Right now, I will try to make the best of it here, and hope for the best. Thankfully, we have three straight days of nice weather coming up, which will help dry things out. However, with many if not all of the New Jersey rivers yet to crest, and the added storm surge from places such as Raritan Bay, it doesn’t look good.