Aftermath Irene in NJ

This post has been sitting in my edit box for way too long. Between school, work, life and my procrastination lifestyle it just has not been able to get out. As most people know NJ got slammered by a hurricane, that followed an earth quake, that was then followed by days and days of heavy rain.....man I hate to say it but 2012 here we come. Dont worry, be happy......because its almost over hahahaha.
But seriously Jersey was hit pretty hard. My general area, and I mean about a four block radius of my house, did not suffer too much. But the rest of the state did not do so well. In the town by my mom, Manville NJ, just about floated away. The town was hit hard, but that is what happens when a town is built up around a river, and then man builds canals all over the place. Just a side note here, look into the area you are planning on moving into. If they have had flooding problems in the past odds are they wont get better as time goes on. Example:

• Man buys house, hurricane comes and destroys his house, house is located in area nick named 'Hurricane Alley', why is man surprised a hurricane destroyed his house?

I am not trying to be mean or unsympathetic to people that lost so much in this past disaster, I just hope some people have learned from this. And that they had insurance, hell I live in an apartment and I learned my lesson about having insurance.......after I got robbed!

Here is a shot of one of the numerous side streets I passed in downtown Manville. Its hard to see because of that stupid car, but all the way down the street both sides are lined with people's belongings. Like I said before I sure hope they had insurance.

I tried to get a shot of the tree line as I went under an under-pass, but taking pictures while driving can be some what problematic. But you can see how high the water level had gotten. If I had been in this very spot 2 days prior to taking this, I would have been completely under water!



The town put up a sign to try and deal with anyone thinking of looting or garbage picking.....the town of Manville will prosecute you if you are caught touching anything that doesn't belong to you. Now if this was down south it might have read: "Touch my shit I will shot you, survivors will be shot again!"

Yeah that means you!

The water level here had to be almost 8 feet high! A river side restaurant sounds nice.....until a hurricane comes through!

The bushes show where the water level was at, I am going to in the area again soon and will take some 'after' shots.

Clean up was well under way, the whole town was in clean up mode when I was driving through. And again look at the bushes, I would not have wanted to be where I was standing 2 days ago!

But on the way out it was reassuring to see that the sticker car made it out. I see this car almost every time I drive through here. The owner is just a crazy looking and decorated as their car.



This last picture was taken at an under pass by my house. This area floods when it drizzles, so just imagine what happened when Irene came down! Well you dont have to imagine, I have a picture of it right here. This car remained here for almost a week before some removed it. Is it me or did this seem like a bad idea from the start?

We did get a little water in our basement but nothing in comparison to what others got. My job was without power for a week after the storm. There was a back up generator but the powers that maybe wanted to be cheap and did not hook up our office area to it. Yes it was in the original plan but the company I work for is all about band-aide solutions and stepping over a dollar to get a quarter. So they saved some money up front but lost in the end when disaster hit. Oh well, its not my problem I still got paid. Got paid to sit in the dark and sleep, I cannt complain it was a nice break before school started up haha.