North Jersey flooding is worst since Floyd, says Little Falls mayor

Steve Janoski | NorthJersey

Show Caption Hide Caption Little Falls neighborhood hit hard by flooding begins clean up Residents in Little Falls spent Sunday, August 12, 2018 cleaning up after flooding of the Peckman River on Saturday quickly submerged basements.

LITTLE FALLS — Dana Gutschmidt wore jeans shorts and work boots Sunday morning as she picked through the ruined remains of her Cedar Street home.

The house never floods, she said. But the nearby Peckman River rose fast after a line of savage thunderstorms tore through the area Saturday, soaking already-sodden ground with more than 3 inches of rain.

This led the churning river to burst from its banks and sweep into its maelstrom SUVs from a neighboring car dealership. In a now-viral video, bystanders watched as new Jeep Compasses bobbed in the water like children’s toys before lodging themselves under a Route 46 overpass, building an artificial dam.

This pushed the water westward, Gutschmidt said. And within minutes, 4 feet of filthy, gasoline-laden floodwater poured through the back door of the home she shares with her husband, their four kids and her brother.

“What do we do?” said Gutschmidt, 36, as she trod gingerly on her mud-soaked lawn. “We have no idea. Where do you start? We have to get the water out first … but then what? Blow your house up?”

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It was a familiar lament throughout North Jersey on Sunday as residents, business owners and public officials surveyed the damage from the punishing rains that sent rivers into roads, cars into creeks and a massive retaining wall crumbling to the ground in Fairview.

“I’ve been here 17 years, never, ever had a drop of water in the basement,” said Barbara Yuhas, 59, whose Cedar Street home also flooded. “This was a total shocker to me.”

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Little Falls Mayor James Damiano said officials were still taking stock of the situation.

“The last time I saw anything like this was during [Hurricane] Floyd back in 1999,” he said.

Lots of rain, and more on the way

Rainfall totals varied wildly.

Caldwell took on 4.9 inches, while Cresskill was struck with 3.3 inches — the most in Bergen County, said Tim Marrin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The rest of Bergen averaged about 2.5 inches.

In Passaic County, Woodland Park led with 3.1 inches. Wayne and Hawthorne were close behind.

But it wasn’t the amount that caused problems, Marrin said; it was the quickness with which it fell.

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“It was just the intensity of the rain in a short period of time,” Marrin said. “It didn’t let the rain drain away. It just kind of congregated and flooded.”

North Jersey is already at 80 percent of its average August rainfall, Marrin said, despite being barely two weeks into the month.

Rain remained in the forecast through Tuesday.

Authorities closed roads across the area Saturday as floodwaters rose, stranding cars and collapsing a retaining wall at a Fairview apartment complex.

No one was hurt, but the complex was evacuated, and 30 apartments and two Linda Lane homes were left uninhabitable, Fairview Fire Battalion Chief Vincent Bellucci said.

It remains unclear how long residents must wait before returning home. Many carried out their belongings Sunday as they planned their next move.

The weather caused other strange incidents as well.

Bogota police rescued a stranded bride and groom Saturday night near River Road and Elm Avenue after the couple’s car was overrun by floodwaters from a nearby brook. The bride, clad in her white dress, escaped through the sunroof and sheltered in a police SUV.

Other low-lying areas flooded almost immediately. Authorities in Woodland Park evacuated a section of McBride Avenue, and police radios were thick Saturday afternoon with reports of marooned cars on Route 3 in Clifton and Route 23 in Wayne.

On Sunday, Paterson firefighters rescued a dog trapped on a ledge above the Great Falls. A firefighter rappelled to the rocky outcropping, then lured the skittish pit bull with food as the swollen Passaic River roiled below. Eventually, he grabbed the dog and was pulled out.

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In Little Falls, the car dealership many on Cedar Street blame for the flooding hosted a flock of tow trucks. One by one, they pulled into the Route 46 Chrysler Jeep Dodge parking lot and loaded onto their flatbeds brand-new Jeep SUVs and Chrysler sedans.

Then they fled down the highway, the chained-up Jeeps trailing river water from their tailpipes.

A man wearing a black shirt and Jeep hat barred a reporter from The Record and NorthJersey.com from the property, claiming the dealership had no comment but declining to say he worked there.

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” he said.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

Staff Writer Joshua Jongsma contributed to this report.