In Millburn, Mopping Up A Mess Downtown

Almost as fast as the waters of Irene flooded downtown, they also receded, leaving behind mud and muck, debris, broken glass, tossed furniture and ruined floors.

As residents and sightseers looked on, merchants, public works employees, firefighters and police officers began the arduous task of cleaning up the mess Irene left behind.

At Tinga, the floor was pulled several inches up and furniture overturned and a door down at Bagel Chateau, water poured out from the sidewalk basement door.

At Basilico, Mario DeMarco and Angelo Delbecchi experienced a little déjà vu as the surveyed the flooded kitchen, the muddy floors and the ripped up patio.

It was just like Hurricane Floyd, only this time they weren’t trapped inside the restaurant in need of rescuing by the fire department.

“At least we were here,” said DeMarco. “This is a disaster.”

Most of the stores and restaurants experienced water damage, some more than others.

Clean up crews with backhoes, front-end loaders, dump trucks and street sweepers quickly worked to get mud and debris off Millburn Avenue between Main Street and Lackawanna Place, which was the hardest hit stretch of downtown.

It would be a long haul ahead and DeMarco and Delbecchi were resigned to the fact that the next week would be heavy cleanup, in addition to having to replace appliances in the basement kitchen, which at one point was completely underwater.

“Last time it took us eight days,” DeMarco said. “… Last time they said it was a once-in-century storm. That was 1999. Now it’s 2011 – a different century, 12 years later.”