Monday, March 15, 2010

Flooding on the Raritan

There is a saying that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. This year March saved the lion part for the middle of the month. Over the weekend, we had a major winter storm with heavy wind and about four inches of rain in 48 hours (some places got more than that). As result the river flooded any low-lying areas, such as my local park.



Someone flooded the bathrooms.


Of course, the local Canada Geese took full advantage of the expanded waters.



For the sake of comparison, the view from the top of the hill should look something like this (in summer).  The benches in the top photo are these ones.

Some towns fared far worse; in Bound Brook, where the river crested at 31.45 feet, the police had to patrol the streets on jetskis and rubber dinghys to evacuate residents. In Highland Park, the water only reached about 15 feet, which is not sufficient to flood the town. Even so, this was the highest I have seen the river in a long time. Newspaper accounts compared it to the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd.