Gov. Phil Murphy faced a feisty and frustrated crowd of residents early Friday as he toured a 55-and-over community in Brick flooded by a deluge of rain earlier in the week, forcing evacuations and causing extensive damage.

"We lost everything," one man told Murphy, as a crowd gathered, peppering the governor with pleas for help and questions about potential FEMA aid. "We can't even stay here."

The residents of the Greenbriar I community, where more than 100 homes were evacuated Monday as nearly 8 inches of rain fell, have spent the week assessing damage, restoring utilities and dumping the ruined contents of their homes at the curb.

"Here's one of my main concerns," one man said. "I'm still young, I can still try to rebuild like I did in Sandy, like I did in Maria in my homeland (Puerto Rico). But my concern is for a lot of the older folks here that are on a fixed income. They got nowhere to go, no money to rebuild. A lot of them are talking about abandoning their homes."

"Yup," the governor said.

"And their life savings are here," the resident continued. "We gotta do something because we're a family community. We gotta do something to hold ourselves together."

"We're doing everything we can," Murphy said.

One person asked Murphy if he should start to rebuild on his own or wait for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Murphy called it a "very good question" and asked one of his aides for an answer. The aide advised the person to start the work, but to document everything.

When another man began detailing his situation to the governor, Murphy replied, "hope is not a strategy. We're doing everything we can -- at the county level, the state level, the federal level. Watch out for contractors who don't have their heart in the right place."

Another person asked what to do if you can't afford to pay to repair the damage, but Murphy was interrupted by other queries from residents and didn't answer.

The governor did a walk-through of two homes in Greenbriar I, a 55-and-older community of more than 1,900 homes just east of the Garden State Parkway.

Earlier this week, officials, including Brick Mayor John Ducey questioned whether the recently-completed construction project along the Garden State Parkway in Brick affected flooding. Long-time residents said the neighborhood had never flooded before.

"I know the county engineers, the state engineers - we're all trying to find out what happened," Murphy told the residents.

Met with homeowners reeling from recent flooding in Brick.



In cooperation with local partners, @NJGov will aggressively pursue all forms of assistance for affected residents. pic.twitter.com/lKI9Ct8F30 — Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) August 17, 2018

On Tuesday, Murphy declared a state of emergency for five counties affected by flooding from multiple storms that rolled through between Saturday and Monday. The counties include Bergen, Essex, Monmouth, Ocean, and Passaic, and the declaration makes additional state resources available to help flood victims.

Murphy toured flood damage in Little Falls on Monday.