(29 Aug 2011) HEADLINE: First Person: New Jersey flooding after Irene
CAPTION: Flooding forced many residents of Lincoln Park, New Jersey to higher ground Sunday after Hurricane Irene dumped heavy rain across the state. Amy Dilk talks about how her neighbors helped her get her animals to the safety of her porch. (Aug. 29)
STORYLINE:
LINCOLN PARK, N.J. (AP) _ Rivers and creeks surged toward potentially record levels late Sunday as Irene, just the third hurricane to come ashore in New Jersey in the past 200 years, charged to the north and left behind a mess _ and a sense that the state got off relatively easy.
Practically everywhere in the state, something was amiss. Fallen trees and floods blocked roads from the New Jersey Turnpike to tiny cul-de-sacs. Sand washed in from the beach littered some major roads on Long Beach Island, central New Jersey''s 18-mile barrier island.
More than 900,000 homes and businesses lacked power and many could remain so for several more days. The beach town of Spring Lake found itself with a wrecked boardwalk. One woman died after being trapped in a submerged car.
Sump pumps worked nonstop to keep basements dry _ where the power was still on, anyway. About 3,000 members of the New Jersey National Guard were asked to help, the most since Hurricane Gloria in 1985.
Still, there was widespread relief that it wasn''t worse for New Jersey.
"I was waiting for the storm this morning," said Damien Davis, who rode it out with his mother in the shore town of Belmar. "I didn''t realize it was over already."
For many, it wasn''t. "It''s not going to be over for days," said State Police Sgt. Stephen Jones.
While people evacuated from the shore communities in advance of Irene were starting to head home, hundreds of people who live near the banks of northern New Jersey rivers including the Raritan and the Passaic moved into shelters.
Flood-prone places like Pompton Plains, Bound Brook and Lincoln Park were filling up by Sunday afternoon. The rivers were expected to crest later Sunday and into Monday. By late afternoon, the Raritan was several feet over Route 18 in New Brunswick.
Large areas of the normally semi-rural Lincoln Park in Morris County were flooded by a network of creeks and streams. A fawn was seen dog-paddling.
Many residents found their homes completely surrounded by water.
Amy Dilk''s adult children left with the fire department while she stayed behind to tend to her animals.
"Right now I got a llama, a sheep and two goats up on my deck. The turkey found a higher perch somewhere. We flood, but never like this. The water just came up so fast," said Dilk, 48. "I waited till daylight and walked out the horse and the miniature donkey. I was walking the horse through the flood water and she caught my pants and pulled me under. That''s a sensation you don''t want to feel."
Her 13-year-old neighbor William Pillus and his 10-year-old brother, Michael, waded through the floodwaters, which reached their chests, and got onto a motorized go-cart they had parked on dry ground, zipping away to pick up some takeout Chinese food.
"I never saw water come up that fast," William said. "The sheep was floating! It looked like a marshmallow going up and down, up and down, up and down in the water."
Elsewhere in Lincoln Park, Jen Fredericks, her husband, their 2-year-old-son and 4-year-old daughter, were trying to find a way to get their minivan to her parents'' home. Fredericks and her family had lost power at their home in Oak Ridge.
"It''s the only thing we have to communicate to the outside world," she said.
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