From The Sidelines: Floods and Knowing a Little History

This is not a Monday Morning quarterbacks view of the tragic flooding that occurred in Montville Township particularly Pine Book. Facts are facts and there was an outrageous amount of water dumped on NJ through Irene. Nothing could have prevented the damage and the height of the water that flooded sections of the township. Our emergency volunteers, fire and first aid could not have done more in response to the emergency. Our police and road department performed at the top of their game from everything I heard and read about them. Knowing them, I would expect that. Now, here is part two. I saw these quotes on Patch from an officer from United Water which controls the Jersey City Reservoir. It follows.

Henning told Patch that last Friday, Gov. Chris Christie, along with other state officials and the Department of Environmental Protection, urged all water companies in the state to release dam waters in advance of then-predicted Hurricane Irene. According to Henning, some water was released from the Boonton dam Friday night, and then rain began to fall. "Nobody wanted to add to potential flooding, so we stopped the release," he said. "Then Mother Nature took over, and we all know Mother Nature is a real force to be reckoned with."

John Hroncich, operations manager for United Water Jersey City, which operates the Jersey City Reservoir, said at the meeting that the reservoir is designed and regulated to provide drinking water, not flood mitigation, and that the company is not allowed to release water without approval from the Department of Environmental Protection.

It did release water on Friday and Saturday leading up to the storm after the state encouraged companies to do so. But it would have taken weeks to release enough water to make up for the record amounts of water surging into the reservoir the day after the storm, he said.

When you understand the dynamics of the Rockaway River, you understand that if the river is high, even a moderate to heavy rainfall can cause flooding from the drainage coming down the Hatfield Creek and related drainage pipes. There is nowhere for the water to go but up. When they released water on that Friday and the river rose it was guaranteed to cause even more flooding.

Now, this was a Hurricane and nothing would have changed the outcome, but the question I have is how long before the rise of water on Sunday were people warned of the potential for what actually occurred. Was the township told about the release on Friday and did they fully understand what that could mean? The River was high Saturday morning. Did they understand what that meant? The above quotes conflict with each other and both come from the United Water Company. According to the National Geologic survey water flows on Sunday reached 50 times what they are normally. Now we have admissions from them that they released water on two days. What is the truth about Sunday. http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?cb_00060=on&cb_00065=on&cb_00021=on&format=html&period=14&site_no=01380500

There is not much that can be done when flood-waters reach those levels but to get out of the way and save as much of your property as you can. More time would have helped. With the right information, more time would have been available.