Hoboken 'Daxbot' Robots Rescued From Floodwaters, But Why Were There Floods?

HOBOKEN, NJ — Strong thunderstorms caused Hoboken to flood at high tide on Saturday, stranding at least one of the new Daxbot robots that's gathering pedestrian data throughout the city. (See our interview with a robot here).

A Hoboken resident snapped this photo of one of the robots stuck on lower Jefferson Street Saturday afternoon.

Subscribe

Hoboken's low-lying areas are known to flood during sudden storms, but the city has been installing flood walls, creating resiliency parks with underground stormwater storage, and repaving the streets in frequently flooded areas, like near the city's ShopRite on Ninth Street.

So why is Hoboken still flooding?

An owner at Jefferson Coffee, on Tenth Street, expressed frustration, saying he lost business.

"10 years ago, after Hurricane Sandy, we were told things would improve," he said. "Instead, we have dealt with flooding here almost every single year since. Last year, the North Hudson Sewerage Authority started a major project to address this, but as you can see from yesterday, nothing has actually changed—we are still dealing with the exact same severe water buildup and infrastructure failures."

A city spokesperson explained on Monday, "On Saturday, the city experienced an intense rainfall event, with a peak rainfall rate of over 2 inches an hour falling during high tide at peak intensity. For context, low-lying areas of Hoboken can begin to experience roadway flooding when rainfall exceeds approximately 0.8 inches per hour."

Spokesperson Marilyn Baer said high tide meant that "Hudson River outfalls were submerged, limiting the system's ability to discharge stormwater. During the storm, the city's stormwater detention tanks reached capacity, and the flood pumps pumped about 14 million gallons of stormwater."

City workers began unclogging catch basins during the storms, she said.

Residents can contact the North Hudson Sewerage Authority hotline when they see a clogged sewer at (866) 689-3970. This may be helpful, as another inch of rain is expected to fall in Hoboken on Tuesday.

But what of all the work that's been done to reduce flooding near the ShopRite and Ninth and Madison streets?

"The Madison Street Infrastructure Improvements project was designed to mitigate recurring flooding impacts by improving drainage and increasing the capacity of the local drainage system," the city said. "While an event of this intensity, particularly during high tide, can exceed the capacity of portions of the system, the goal of these projects has always been to mitigate flooding impacts and strengthen the city's ability to recover."

Daxbots Prepared

As for the Daxbot robots, some were rescued, and others just waited out the storm like everyone else.

"The Daxbots are designed with drainage in mind and are reasonably weather resistant," said the city. "Those that were not covered and placed in elevated areas waited for any flooding to decrease and then continued collecting their engineering data. None of the robots were reported damaged."

Meanwhile, another inch of rain is expected Tuesday afternoon into the evening. See this story for timing for the storms and Hoboken high tide here.