Hurricane Ida: The Fatal Storm That Flooded Hoboken A Year Ago

HOBOKEN, NJ — A year ago, a hurricane barreled through the Deep South and then drenched the Northeast. It had been downgraded to a tropical depression by the time it hit New Jersey — yet it dumped so much rain in a short time that at least 30 residents lost their lives in floods.

Wednesday, Sept. 1 was a quiet day, leading some to doubt the dire forecasts. But around 4 p.m., the storm brought more than 7 inches of rain in a few hours to many North Jersey towns, knocking out walls, flooding homes, and taking lives.

In Hoboken, there was no loss of life as there was in other towns along rivers — but there were drivers who had to be rescued from fast-rising waters.

Residents faced thousands of dollars in property damage, had to toss out entire rooms full of belongings, and even saw snakes in a basement in one case.

An extensive followup report on the storm from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association this past April noted, "a swath of heavy rains with local rainfall rates near or above 3 inches per hour developed north of the center and affected a long area extending from northern West Virginia, across western Maryland, southeastern Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey, southeastern New York...."

"Maximum storm total rainfalls in these areas include 10.10 inches at Downingtown, Pa., 10.06 inches at Manville, New Jersey ... The extreme rainfall rates and heavy rainfall caused major freshwater flooding in these areas, including deadly and damaging flash flooding and urban flooding across portions of the New York City metropolitan area and northern New Jersey."

Third Severe Storm That Summer

Amid the mayhem that evening, residents received a rare (for this area) tornado warning from the National Weather Service telling them to head to the basements, although no tornado touched down.

A Nixle alert from the city warned, "Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building."

But the flooding itself wasn't unprecedented that summer. There had been at least two prior storms in two months that dumped heavy rain in a short time, one trapping Shoprite customers in a parking lot.

Officials in low-lying Hoboken, faced with a century-old combined sewer system and near sea-level elevations, had been taking measures for years against storms, including participating in the national Rebuild By Design project to protect the area from storm surges.

Hoboken Simulation Of Labor Day Hurricane

This week, Hoboken Public Safety Director Ken Ferrante looked at what the city has done about severe storms recently and what it's doing for the future.

"Upgraded flood pumps helped alleviate this flooding within a day," he said of Ida. "Also, due to upgrades in our power supplies and electrical infrastructure through a decade of work with PSE&G, the city didn’t experience any system-wide power outages. Some individual buildings lost power, but those were building-specific issues and they were restored immediately."

Hoboken residents may recall that during Superstorm Sandy in 2012, many Hoboken blocks lost power for one to two weeks.

"We always strive to do better in the future," Ferrante said Wednesday, "so due to lessons learned from Superstorm Sandy and more recently Hurricanes Ida and Henri, Hoboken OEM Coordinator Sgt. Will Montanez, Assistant Business Administrator and Resiliency Officer Caleb Stratton, and I hosted a Table Top exercise on July 7, for every city agency and department as well as PSE&G. CarePoint, Hoboken Volunteer Ambulance Corps/Emergency Medical Service, and City Council Public Safety Committee members."

Ferrante created a hypothetical Category 2 hurricane hitting the region on Labor Day, and for four hours, the parties practiced and discussed the preparations and response.

"We had over 40 executives involved in this exercise," he said.

The city has also published an addendum to Resilient Building Guidelines, for residents to protect their homes (see it here).

A city spokesperson noted that green infrastructure will help, including the expanded Southwest Park and new Northwest Resiliency Park.

Another park in progress, the park at 800 Monroe St., will hold 500,000 gallons of storm water.

Experts in New Jersey have explained why severe storms are happening more often, and why the state's infrastructure was not built to handle them. READ MORE: Why Is NJ Flooding Getting Worse And What To Do

So Where Are The Storms This Summer?

As opposed to last summer, when at least three storms with heavy rain caused flooding in Hoboken, the city has not had a heavy storm in months, narrowly missing several that passed just north of the city.

And there have been no named hurricanes on the East Coast this year, which scientists have offered theories about.

However, there are three tropical disturbances brewing in the Atlantic, including Tropical Storm Danielle. Atlantic hurricane season runs through Nov. 30.

• See Hoboken's FEMA flood map here.
• Find out more about what else the city had done about flooding here.
  

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