‘Gonna be bad’: NJ victims of last month’s floods worry about next rainstorm

LITTLE FALLS, N.J. (PIX11) — Residents of about a half dozen communities in North Jersey that flooded badly three weeks ago are worried that they'll be deep underwater again, with heavy rains and winds in the forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday.

The forecasted storm is expected to pour up to 3 inches of rain on top of up to a foot of snow that fell over the past weekend, melting it into the Passaic and Hackensack rivers. The rivers are only now barely back in their banks after the heavy rains that fell the week before Christmas.

Add to that picture already saturated ground, and it's a situation that's so potentially dire that New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency for the entire state. All of New Jersey also officially faces a flood risk, according to the National Weather Service, which indicates that North Jersey is at greatest risk.

It's left the thousands of residents whose homes were damaged in December's storms deeply concerned that they'll be inundated again.

"I'm gonna have an anxiety attack," said a Little Falls resident who only gave his first name, Danny. "I can't put up with this anymore," he continued. "It's too much."

He led PIX11 News through the ground level of his three-story home. He'd had to remove the drywall and insulation in his home after it flooded, in order to prevent mold and other problems from arising as the flood waters receded.

"The water was like up almost to this mark," he said, as he pointed to a place on a door, just below the doorknob.

His worries about another bad flood three weeks after the previous one were shared by many North Jersey residents.

Anthony Gardner owns a car repair business on Bergen Street in Paterson.

"So we know it's gonna be bad," he said, at the end of the street, which is just paces away from the Passaic River. At the other end of the block-long street is a flood indicator rod. It's basically a reflective measuring stick, attached to a traffic sign, that shows how deep floodwaters can become, more than a football field-length away from the river.

Gardener explained that some of his auto inventory needed to be moved to higher ground to avoid being flooded this week, but some of his cars had been rendered immobile by December's storm.

"A lot of stuff cannot move no more," Anderson said, "because it got messy already."

"We had our high water vehicles on high alert," Sayegh said in an interview, "and we also have our swift boats ready for rescue operations."

He also said that his public works department was ready to close off streets that were expected to flood.

The same was the case in Little Falls, Fairfield, Lodi, and elsewhere.

One Paterson resident, Nye Jaime, when asked how deep he expected the flooding to be, based on the December weather event, put his hand over his head.

"Unbelievable," he said. "Maybe cover everything here."

He also said that he hopes that the governor can provide financial assistance to residents like him. He also owns a small business next to the river in Paterson.

Gov. Murphy's state of emergency goes into effect at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.