Flooding forces evacuations in North Jersey towns
WAYNE, N.J. (PIX11) -- Hundreds of residents in North Jersey communities are out of their homes after floodwaters from Monday's torrential rains forced them to evacuate, either before the rivers crested, or, in the case of evacuations on Tuesday afternoon, afterward.
Nick Robio was in the latter category -- he didn't evacuate until after the high waters forced him to do so. Rescue officers from the Wayne Police Department brought him and his dog Luna out of their home on Fayette Avenue.
"It's about 6 or 7 [feet deep] in there," he said about the flooding in his house. "Luckily, we were fine," he continued. "It's a flood zone, so we were like used to it."
However, he added, that even though he's seen floodwaters rise occasionally in the time he's lived here, this was altogether different.
"Like this, never," he said. "I've been here for about three years. Never."
Another family rescued from their home were Jaime Loraisa and his school-age son.
They said that they only spoke Spanish, but could sum up what conditions had been like for them in the home where they'd been stranded for 24 hours.
"Frio, frio," Loraisa said -- cold, cold. His son nodded in agreement.
It was a theme where the flood waters rose, both in Wayne, and in Lincoln Park, the town directly across the Pompton River.
Susana Gutierrez was standing on the balcony in the back of her home in Wayne, which was an island in the middle of the river's overflow.
"Mucho frio," she said in response to a question about how she was doing.
To try and help, her neighbors Lautaro and Helen Marchesini got into a jon boat that they own. The couple lives steps away from the overflown river's banks and put their flat-bottomed aluminum boat into what is usually a parking lot. Instead, it was a shallow extension of the river.
They went through the neighborhood to see if they could offer assistance, and said that they'd been affected by a feeling of helplessness at another sight.
"That fire," said Lautaro Marchesini, "it was very difficult to get to that house, and it just burnt down."
He was referring to a home they and all of their neighbors had watched burn down in the floodwaters in Lincoln Park, a few football field-lengths away.
The fire broke out before sunrise on Tuesday, and because no firefighters could reach the home with full firefighting equipment, they had to let it burn down.
No deaths or injuries were reported, but the home was a total loss.
Firefighters, in red high-wheeled trucks called six-by-sixes, were able to reach stranded residents and get them out.
The Pompton River crested before Tuesday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service, but most homes within a quarter-mile of its banks were still inundated on Tuesday evening.
The river is not expected to be back in its banks until Wednesday morning at the earliest.