BY STEVE JANOSKI
I was not paying attention, I admit it. But then again, neither was the rest of the media.
It's not on the New York Times home page, it hasn't been plastered across television screens, and nobody seems to want to speak on it - but it's happening, whether we all want to report on it or not.
These protestors who have been “occupying” Wall Street for the past three weeks, I'm not even sure who they are. The lone common thread appears to be that they are all young, liberal, and… well, that's it.
The few news outlets paying the protest any serious attention have said that some are protesting corporate greed, while others are protesting the undue influence that Wall Street holds over our politicians; recent statements released by the group have added such concerns as police brutality, union busting, and the economy to the list.
Chants have risen up in the concrete valleys of New York, with the refrain of “We are the 99 percent” and “They got bailed out, we got sold out,” and it's clear that the protestors are drawing inspiration from the freedom protests born of the Arab Spring.
For a while, they were easy to dismiss as a few hundred radical hippies trying to make something out of nothing, but as liberal celebrities like Michael Moore and Cornel West joined the fight, it began to garner more attention through, of course, social media outlets.
One particularly inflammatory video on YouTube shows Wall Street's elite dressed in their Sunday finest, drinking champagne and laughing dismissively while watching the protestors; Hunter S. Thompson himself could not have written that script any better.
And so this week, that rag-tag bunch of kids will be joined by the real heavyweights as several prominent unions embrace their cause, and endorsements from the AFL-CIO, the Transport Workers Union Local 100 (representing 38,000 New York city transit workers), and the United Federation of Teachers (amongst others) have come rolling in.
It is a safe bet that other labor organizations will follow their lead. People in other cities certainly have - protests in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, and Washington, D.C. either have occurred or are being planned.
What this odd combination of old hippies, young hippies, union workers, and anyone else who is out of work and angry about it seems to be tapping into is the silent rage that those of us in the middle class hold because our prospects for the future were left for dead in the ashen wreckage of the “financial crisis.”
They're not socialists, but they don't want every government safety net torn from under them, and don't want corporations to be deregulated to the point of no return.
They're the ones who realize that while American manufacturing lies in hazy ruin, union membership - which helped create the vaunted middle class - has fallen to record lows, and the prodigious wealth disparity is growing every day.
They're the ones who are angry that, unless you're a CEO, there are no jobs, no money, and no raises - not now and, from news reports, it seems not ever.
This is not the first time this happened; a dozen years ago, there was a fight in the streets of Seattle that caught the world by surprise when the nascent anti-globalization movement announced its arrival by bringing tens of thousands into the streets to protest the World Trade Organization and the unbridled power that the massive, multi-national corporations were gathering.
The attacks of September 11 effectively undercut that movement, and the foreign wars of retribution that followed it made citizens focus more on the external threats than the internal.
But now, as those perils begin to fade and America stares down the barrel of yet another recession, it seems that Americans are finally beginning to cast their gaze inward and wonder what happened to the nation that they once knew.
It seems like it was a lifetime ago, but it's only been nine months ago since the now-legendary Mohamed Bouazizi lit himself on fire in the middle of the street in Sidi Bouzid.
His final words before committing that single act of defiance that ignited revolution across the Middle East?
“How do you expect me to make a living?”
Well, give Wall Streeters enough champagne, and I bet they'll come up with an answer for you.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
Friday, September 30, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Bin Laden's backhanded victory
STEVE JANOSKI
When I drive through the heart of my state on the ever-chaotic Route 3 and the New York City skyline rises up in the hazy distance, it just doesn't look right without them.
I have never gotten used to the sight. At this point, I doubt I ever will.
The memories from that day are vivid — huddled around the cab of an old Chevy S-10 on our lunch period, listening to the car radio in astonishment as announcers caterwauled between updates on the Twin Towers and warnings about further attacks.
We may as well have been crowded around an arch-topped table radio listening to the first reports on Pearl Harbor as far as I was concerned.
"Jesus Christ," I said between pulls of a cigarette. "We're going to war with… somebody."
New York was our city, my city, the place I'd been brought every weekend since I was old enough to walk, and now it sat shrouded in a billowing fog of destruction that had been catapulted into the air as the ashes of firefighters and office workers mixed with the chalky dust of 220 floors' worth of sheetrock.
The psychological effect it all had on me was incalculable.
Ten years later, I suppose that gazing at that lacking skyline is the ultimate solemn reminder that nothing in life is permanent and that we are not all the heroes of our own movies.
Some of us go quietly, some gallantly, some with a whisper and some with a roar, but in the end, we all die, and every time it's a tragedy.
And sometimes the things we've built up around ourselves, our bridges and our skyscrapers and our countries, they die too — 9/11 taught us that much, and nothing has been quite the same since we learned that lesson.
And I don't mean that in the "9/11 changed everything!" way that some politicians do when they're seeking approval to invade this country or that country, but more that in 2001, America was robbed of its characteristic optimism, and without that, it seems to be hurtling toward a devastating end.
For years after 9/11, we turned into a crooked-back ogre, glaring with untrusting eyes and balled fists at every nation, a recalcitrant bully all too ready to call for war in the deserts of the Middle East or on the floors of our own Congress.
The scars are still there — now, a decade later, we are reluctant to help the people of the Middle East as they brawl in the streets for their own liberty, which we supposedly championed back then.
And 10 years later, we are not better off.
On the best of days, the country is going bankrupt, the infrastructure is crumbling, and our foreign wars are bleeding us dry. On the worst, we are told it's our last day on the job, that the rivers are rising, or that the bank is foreclosing.
Still, we have not learned. We call for war to prevent war, we build more to prevent flooding, we elect people who hate government to fix government; as a country, we seem in dire need of a logic class or two.
Sometimes, for all of our flight deck rhetoric about how we "stand strong" and "never forget," I wonder if Bin Laden actually succeeded.
Maybe, just maybe, he figured out that his strikes would foment a need for revenge that would so thoroughly consume America that it would recklessly charge down the path to massive debt and a crippled economy just for the chance to kill him, willingly suffocating itself in pursuit of "victory."
Maybe he knew us better than we thought — maybe, better than we knew ourselves.
Or maybe I've just lost that September 10 optimism I once had.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
When I drive through the heart of my state on the ever-chaotic Route 3 and the New York City skyline rises up in the hazy distance, it just doesn't look right without them.
I have never gotten used to the sight. At this point, I doubt I ever will.
The memories from that day are vivid — huddled around the cab of an old Chevy S-10 on our lunch period, listening to the car radio in astonishment as announcers caterwauled between updates on the Twin Towers and warnings about further attacks.
We may as well have been crowded around an arch-topped table radio listening to the first reports on Pearl Harbor as far as I was concerned.
"Jesus Christ," I said between pulls of a cigarette. "We're going to war with… somebody."
New York was our city, my city, the place I'd been brought every weekend since I was old enough to walk, and now it sat shrouded in a billowing fog of destruction that had been catapulted into the air as the ashes of firefighters and office workers mixed with the chalky dust of 220 floors' worth of sheetrock.
The psychological effect it all had on me was incalculable.
Ten years later, I suppose that gazing at that lacking skyline is the ultimate solemn reminder that nothing in life is permanent and that we are not all the heroes of our own movies.
Some of us go quietly, some gallantly, some with a whisper and some with a roar, but in the end, we all die, and every time it's a tragedy.
And sometimes the things we've built up around ourselves, our bridges and our skyscrapers and our countries, they die too — 9/11 taught us that much, and nothing has been quite the same since we learned that lesson.
And I don't mean that in the "9/11 changed everything!" way that some politicians do when they're seeking approval to invade this country or that country, but more that in 2001, America was robbed of its characteristic optimism, and without that, it seems to be hurtling toward a devastating end.
For years after 9/11, we turned into a crooked-back ogre, glaring with untrusting eyes and balled fists at every nation, a recalcitrant bully all too ready to call for war in the deserts of the Middle East or on the floors of our own Congress.
The scars are still there — now, a decade later, we are reluctant to help the people of the Middle East as they brawl in the streets for their own liberty, which we supposedly championed back then.
And 10 years later, we are not better off.
On the best of days, the country is going bankrupt, the infrastructure is crumbling, and our foreign wars are bleeding us dry. On the worst, we are told it's our last day on the job, that the rivers are rising, or that the bank is foreclosing.
Still, we have not learned. We call for war to prevent war, we build more to prevent flooding, we elect people who hate government to fix government; as a country, we seem in dire need of a logic class or two.
Sometimes, for all of our flight deck rhetoric about how we "stand strong" and "never forget," I wonder if Bin Laden actually succeeded.
Maybe, just maybe, he figured out that his strikes would foment a need for revenge that would so thoroughly consume America that it would recklessly charge down the path to massive debt and a crippled economy just for the chance to kill him, willingly suffocating itself in pursuit of "victory."
Maybe he knew us better than we thought — maybe, better than we knew ourselves.
Or maybe I've just lost that September 10 optimism I once had.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
Friday, September 2, 2011
Pequannock hit with record flooding as Pompton rises to unprecedentedheights
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2011
BY STEVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER
SUBURBAN TRENDS
Some areas of the East Coast managed to slip Hurricane Irene's knockout blows, but Pequannock, as always, took it right on the chin, with 9 inches of rain overwhelming every brook and river in the township and causing a degree of flooding that hasn't been seen since 1903.
At Town Hall on Monday, exhausted Pequannockofficials were unable to tell what day it was because they'd been awake so long while firefighters mounted huge deuce-and-a-half trucks and took to the waters to take people and animals out of homes.
All the while, residents and emergency personnel alike were awed at the unprecedented amount of damage that had been done to a town that had been transformed into a small island and left to fend for itself.
Preparations had been taken and flood plans were implemented. Governor Christie ordered the Pompton Lake Dam opened up on Saturday to drain the lake of about 3 feet of water, and toldPequannock Mayor Rich Phelan that he would be "taking a leap of faith" with local mayors to try to avert a 100-year flood.
In the end, after Hurricane Irene rumbled through the area this weekend and dropped over 9 inches of rain in the course of less than 24 hours, public officials would realize that Pompton Lake could have been drained down to the bed and it still wouldn't have mattered.
By the time the Pompton River was done with its tantrum at about 5 a.m. Sunday, it had crested at 25.24 feet, shattering the records for flooding from the past century and finally eclipsing the legendary 1984 flood by almost a foot.
A tired Phelan was shocked by the devastation that the waters brought.
"I couldn't believe how bad it was," he said on Monday afternoon. "The benchmark flood was 1984, everybody has always talked about the 1984 flood, that this was the big one — and this was beyond where we were at in 1984."
Phelan had promised during last year's election campaign to raise hackles about Pequannock's flooding problems with the state, but even he had to admit that this year's event, which was the seventh overall and the fifth major flood in the past two years, was unavoidable.
"We could probably stop the 10-year-flood," Phelan said. "But you can't stop the 100-year floods. It's impossible…you will never stop the 100-year flood unless you build 40-foot concrete walls out there…this is the one you have to grin and bear."
Township Manager Dave Hollberg had been awake for days as well, and met with Suburban Trends in his office on Monday during a break in the maelstrom of activity that characterized Pequannock's Office of Emergency Management command center, which was situated in a small conference room at Town Hall.
Hollberg said that with rain predictions ranging from 6 to 10 inches, it was difficult to know what to prepare for, but with the reservoirs to the north of the township already nearly full, he knew it would be only a matter of time before the waters of the Pequannock, Pompton, and Wanaque rivers combined to make Pequannock a reservoir itself.
Evacuations by way of reverse-911 calls began in the lowest-lying areas — neighborhoods by Harrison Road and businesses along Route 23 — late Saturday night and into early Sunday as the storm commenced, but things remained calm, the manager said.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, however, troubles began to mount. Water began coursing over the spillway at the Pompton Lake Dam, Hollberg said, and within a few hours, 6,600 cubic feet of water per second was charging through and heading downstream.
At 3 a.m., the water levels started rising; between 4 and 5 a.m., the river jumped up 2 feet. By 6 a.m., it had risen another 2 feet, and evacuations began on Oakwood and Pequannock avenues. The river had reached 16.5 feet — flood stage.
The Village was evacuated in preparation, and to nearly everyone's shock, Greenview Park and West Parkway began to flood for the first time in memory.
Some flooded-out residents on the west side of town blamed the new turf field construction atPequannock Township High School, although Hollberg said it's a bit more likely that it was rain combined with water blitzing down off the mountains that inundated the Beaver Brook by the Lincoln Park Airport and caused the water to back up into the streets.
"When you get that much rain, it rushes down the mountain, and then it hits this flat spot and it's got no place to go," Hollberg said.
On Sunday morning, standing puddles of nearly a foot of water had made West Parkway impassable, and Jacksonville Road soon followed.
At the same time, Route 23 closed; Hollberg said that within an hour of the jughandle closing, the rest of Route 23 was shut off and only local traffic has been allowed in since.
The Newark-Pompton Turnpike would be shut down late Sunday afternoon as waters began to lap over the thoroughfare at several points and the Pompton swelled up to meet the bridge at the south end of town running into Wayne.
Calls rolled in constantly Sunday for evacuations, and they got more numerous and more panicked as the Pompton River began to seep under front doors in the darkness as it crested late Sunday night into Monday morning.
About two dozen calls came in after 8:30 on Sunday night, but Hollberg said that evacuations became exponentially more dangerous in the dark, and with all the notice given to residents to evacuate, the township refused to put its emergency workers at risk by performing midnight runs.
"I think that people who haven't been flooded before because it didn't quite make it into their homes didn't heed the (evacuation) warning as closely," Hollberg said.
At dawn on Monday, the rescues resumed, and altogether about 600 homes were ordered evacuated. How many individuals were rescued is still unknown.
The damage was savage. Homes in the Village Area off Jackson Avenue, which floods only during the worst storms, had 4 to 6 feet of water their first levels; their front doors showed dirty high water marks at stomach height on Monday afternoon.
Cars and trucks left overnight featured fogging windows and radiators with sticks and brush jammed into them, and front lawns swayed like seaweed below the waterline as the current ebbed and flowed through the neighborhood.
The south end of town saw similar totals, and even National Guard deuce-and-a-half trucks floundered in the Alexander Avenue area.
PV Park's diving board now rests in the middle of the one giant lake that has absorbed both PV and Woodland Lake, and Hollberg said that the lake is "officially closed for the season."
About 30 residents crowded into the shelter set up at Pequannock Valley Middle School, which functioned throughout the storm. On Monday, however, PV, along with a wide swath of the southern end of town, lost power because a malfunctioning power substation off of Irving Street was surrounded by water, precluding JCP&L from reaching it.
However, the manager said, the township dodged the predicted high winds, and few power outages were reported during the storm.
For once, it will be hard blame the Pompton Lake Dam's floodgates for the township's troubles, even though it has become a favorite target of residents and officials alike since its completion in 2007.
Although Hollberg said that he would have rather had the dam opened and left open in order to avoid the sudden increases in river height that occurred Sunday morning, he said that the overall volume of Pompton Lake is so small that it had "no impact" on the amount of water the township received.
"You get a hurricane that produced 9 inches of rain in 18 hours, we can be ready to react to the effects of the storm, but I don't think there's anything that can be done…that much rain is gonna cause flooding," he said.
Phelan said that he thought the draining of the lake "couldn't have hurt," and that more importantly, it will open the door for future draining ahead of smaller storms.
Had Irene dropped 4 inches of rain instead of nearly 10, the draining might have averted the typical flooding that occurs, he said.
"We got Christie to actually do something, so we can probably go back the next time we know there's going to be a heavy rainstorm…and say, 'You did it one time, now do it again for us,'" he said. "It was a great thing (Christie) did even though it didn't help, but it may help on our 10-year floods going forward."
In the end, however, no deaths or serious injuries have been reported in the township, and attention will turn to helping the recovery, whenever it begins.
It is still too early for damage estimates, but it does not look promising.
Early reports indicated on Tuesday that part of the highway by Woodland Lake was undermined, and a reopening date is yet unclear.
The Newark-Pompton Turnpike bridge into Wayne was still closed Tuesday, and will be until the bridge can be inspected. Few access routes into the town are open, and police are checking licenses before letting people in.
Phelan said the big concern now will be to organize volunteers and get out and help the residents who are enduring once again.
"We're going to do whatever we can to help them…but it's going to be a huge cleanup," he said.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/128859683_Irene_sinks_low-lying_areas.html?c=y&page=3
BY STEVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER
SUBURBAN TRENDS
Some areas of the East Coast managed to slip Hurricane Irene's knockout blows, but Pequannock, as always, took it right on the chin, with 9 inches of rain overwhelming every brook and river in the township and causing a degree of flooding that hasn't been seen since 1903.
At Town Hall on Monday, exhausted Pequannockofficials were unable to tell what day it was because they'd been awake so long while firefighters mounted huge deuce-and-a-half trucks and took to the waters to take people and animals out of homes.
All the while, residents and emergency personnel alike were awed at the unprecedented amount of damage that had been done to a town that had been transformed into a small island and left to fend for itself.
Preparations had been taken and flood plans were implemented. Governor Christie ordered the Pompton Lake Dam opened up on Saturday to drain the lake of about 3 feet of water, and toldPequannock Mayor Rich Phelan that he would be "taking a leap of faith" with local mayors to try to avert a 100-year flood.
In the end, after Hurricane Irene rumbled through the area this weekend and dropped over 9 inches of rain in the course of less than 24 hours, public officials would realize that Pompton Lake could have been drained down to the bed and it still wouldn't have mattered.
By the time the Pompton River was done with its tantrum at about 5 a.m. Sunday, it had crested at 25.24 feet, shattering the records for flooding from the past century and finally eclipsing the legendary 1984 flood by almost a foot.
A tired Phelan was shocked by the devastation that the waters brought.
"I couldn't believe how bad it was," he said on Monday afternoon. "The benchmark flood was 1984, everybody has always talked about the 1984 flood, that this was the big one — and this was beyond where we were at in 1984."
Phelan had promised during last year's election campaign to raise hackles about Pequannock's flooding problems with the state, but even he had to admit that this year's event, which was the seventh overall and the fifth major flood in the past two years, was unavoidable.
"We could probably stop the 10-year-flood," Phelan said. "But you can't stop the 100-year floods. It's impossible…you will never stop the 100-year flood unless you build 40-foot concrete walls out there…this is the one you have to grin and bear."
Township Manager Dave Hollberg had been awake for days as well, and met with Suburban Trends in his office on Monday during a break in the maelstrom of activity that characterized Pequannock's Office of Emergency Management command center, which was situated in a small conference room at Town Hall.
Hollberg said that with rain predictions ranging from 6 to 10 inches, it was difficult to know what to prepare for, but with the reservoirs to the north of the township already nearly full, he knew it would be only a matter of time before the waters of the Pequannock, Pompton, and Wanaque rivers combined to make Pequannock a reservoir itself.
Evacuations by way of reverse-911 calls began in the lowest-lying areas — neighborhoods by Harrison Road and businesses along Route 23 — late Saturday night and into early Sunday as the storm commenced, but things remained calm, the manager said.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, however, troubles began to mount. Water began coursing over the spillway at the Pompton Lake Dam, Hollberg said, and within a few hours, 6,600 cubic feet of water per second was charging through and heading downstream.
At 3 a.m., the water levels started rising; between 4 and 5 a.m., the river jumped up 2 feet. By 6 a.m., it had risen another 2 feet, and evacuations began on Oakwood and Pequannock avenues. The river had reached 16.5 feet — flood stage.
The Village was evacuated in preparation, and to nearly everyone's shock, Greenview Park and West Parkway began to flood for the first time in memory.
Some flooded-out residents on the west side of town blamed the new turf field construction atPequannock Township High School, although Hollberg said it's a bit more likely that it was rain combined with water blitzing down off the mountains that inundated the Beaver Brook by the Lincoln Park Airport and caused the water to back up into the streets.
'No place to go'
"When you get that much rain, it rushes down the mountain, and then it hits this flat spot and it's got no place to go," Hollberg said.
On Sunday morning, standing puddles of nearly a foot of water had made West Parkway impassable, and Jacksonville Road soon followed.
At the same time, Route 23 closed; Hollberg said that within an hour of the jughandle closing, the rest of Route 23 was shut off and only local traffic has been allowed in since.
The Newark-Pompton Turnpike would be shut down late Sunday afternoon as waters began to lap over the thoroughfare at several points and the Pompton swelled up to meet the bridge at the south end of town running into Wayne.
Calls rolled in constantly Sunday for evacuations, and they got more numerous and more panicked as the Pompton River began to seep under front doors in the darkness as it crested late Sunday night into Monday morning.
About two dozen calls came in after 8:30 on Sunday night, but Hollberg said that evacuations became exponentially more dangerous in the dark, and with all the notice given to residents to evacuate, the township refused to put its emergency workers at risk by performing midnight runs.
"I think that people who haven't been flooded before because it didn't quite make it into their homes didn't heed the (evacuation) warning as closely," Hollberg said.
At dawn on Monday, the rescues resumed, and altogether about 600 homes were ordered evacuated. How many individuals were rescued is still unknown.
The damage was savage. Homes in the Village Area off Jackson Avenue, which floods only during the worst storms, had 4 to 6 feet of water their first levels; their front doors showed dirty high water marks at stomach height on Monday afternoon.
Cars and trucks left overnight featured fogging windows and radiators with sticks and brush jammed into them, and front lawns swayed like seaweed below the waterline as the current ebbed and flowed through the neighborhood.
The south end of town saw similar totals, and even National Guard deuce-and-a-half trucks floundered in the Alexander Avenue area.
'Closed for the season'
PV Park's diving board now rests in the middle of the one giant lake that has absorbed both PV and Woodland Lake, and Hollberg said that the lake is "officially closed for the season."
About 30 residents crowded into the shelter set up at Pequannock Valley Middle School, which functioned throughout the storm. On Monday, however, PV, along with a wide swath of the southern end of town, lost power because a malfunctioning power substation off of Irving Street was surrounded by water, precluding JCP&L from reaching it.
However, the manager said, the township dodged the predicted high winds, and few power outages were reported during the storm.
For once, it will be hard blame the Pompton Lake Dam's floodgates for the township's troubles, even though it has become a favorite target of residents and officials alike since its completion in 2007.
Although Hollberg said that he would have rather had the dam opened and left open in order to avoid the sudden increases in river height that occurred Sunday morning, he said that the overall volume of Pompton Lake is so small that it had "no impact" on the amount of water the township received.
"You get a hurricane that produced 9 inches of rain in 18 hours, we can be ready to react to the effects of the storm, but I don't think there's anything that can be done…that much rain is gonna cause flooding," he said.
Phelan said that he thought the draining of the lake "couldn't have hurt," and that more importantly, it will open the door for future draining ahead of smaller storms.
Had Irene dropped 4 inches of rain instead of nearly 10, the draining might have averted the typical flooding that occurs, he said.
"We got Christie to actually do something, so we can probably go back the next time we know there's going to be a heavy rainstorm…and say, 'You did it one time, now do it again for us,'" he said. "It was a great thing (Christie) did even though it didn't help, but it may help on our 10-year floods going forward."
In the end, however, no deaths or serious injuries have been reported in the township, and attention will turn to helping the recovery, whenever it begins.
It is still too early for damage estimates, but it does not look promising.
Early reports indicated on Tuesday that part of the highway by Woodland Lake was undermined, and a reopening date is yet unclear.
The Newark-Pompton Turnpike bridge into Wayne was still closed Tuesday, and will be until the bridge can be inspected. Few access routes into the town are open, and police are checking licenses before letting people in.
Phelan said the big concern now will be to organize volunteers and get out and help the residents who are enduring once again.
"We're going to do whatever we can to help them…but it's going to be a huge cleanup," he said.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/128859683_Irene_sinks_low-lying_areas.html?c=y&page=3
Pequannock manager asks state to lower reservoirs before Irene
SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2011
BY STEVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER
As Hurricane Irene comes hurtling up the eastern seaboard, the threat of up to 10 inches of rain has many in the flood-prone township cringing and preparing for the worst yet again.
In a Wednesday interview in his office, Township Manager Dave Hollberg said that although he knew it was too early to make predictions, he knew how "the worst" could come about: a massive overflow from North Jersey's reservoirs, which, according to the NJ Department of Environmental Protection's (DEP) website, are already almost full.
Hollberg has been keeping a keen eye on the weather forecasts over the past few days, and he's well aware that a 50-mile swing in the hurricane's eye could be the difference between four and eight inches of rain.
In a place like Pequannock, that's the difference between the typical closing of Alexander Avenue and a catastrophic flood that would inundate the township's roads for the fifth time in 18 months.
He has good reason to worry, said Dave Robinson, the state climatologist at Rutgers University; when Hurricane Floyd struck back in 1999, part of the reason the Passaic River Basin was not damaged as badly as it could have been was that there was a drought, and water levels at the reservoirs were low.
The situation today is reversed, though, and the fact that the land is wet and water levels are high "means that the reservoirs aren't a great help," he said.
"They'll buy a little bit of space, but if we get 10 inches of rain.... we're going to have major flooding," Robinson said.
And the reservoirs are certainly pretty high – those belonging to the City of Newark (such as the Charlotteburg Reservoir in West Milford) directly affect the flow of the Pequannock River, and they're sitting at nearly 100 percent capacity.
Meanwhile, the Monksville and Wanaque Reservoirs, which directly affect the Wanaque River's water levels and are owned by the North Jersey District Water Supply, are about 90 percent full.
Typically at this point in August, these bodies of water are sitting at 75 to 80 percent full, and Hollberg said it will only take a few inches of rain (which Irene nearly guarantees to drop) to top them out as well – and that's when "the worst" starts.
Comparing the situation to a sink with three faucets, he said that the Ramapo and the Pequannock are always flowing strong, but the Wanaque only sees a significant volume of water when the reservoirs feeding it are inundated.
"You turn on two spigots full blast, and it starts to back up," he said. "You turn three of them on full blast... and it's very bad."
Hollberg said that township officials have seen such things occur in the past, and said that river heights skyrocket, sometimes at the rate of a foot an hour, once the reservoirs hit capacity.
He sent a letter off on Tuesday, Aug. 23 to the governor's office that asked Governor Christie to take the "unprecedented action" of ordering as much water as possible be pre-released from the already choked-up reservoirs.
"A prerelease at this time will increase their capacity to absorb rainfall from the approaching storm and allow sufficient time for waters to drain through and out of the river systems before the heavy rains begin later this weekend," the letter stated while pleading its case.
Hollberg knows that even if the state actually acted on the recommendation, it wouldn't solve the problem...but it might help.
"It wouldn't be huge, but for every hundred million gallons that you can get down the river now, today, that's a hundred million capacity that the reservoir has to hold before it starts overflowing in the middle of a heavy rain," he said.
On Friday, township officials found out that the Pompton Lakes Dam was to be opened in order to lower the lake by three feet in order to provide some flood storage, but there was still no word about the reservoirs.
Hollberg's letter had asked for this as well, citing that opening the dam would provide "much needed control data" that could be used to assess the real impacts of the structure on flooding.
Progress has been made in at least one aspect, he said — the Passaic County Office of Emergency Management now notifies township's police desk when the gates are activating, as opposed to past practice that featured no warnings.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/128416458_Full_reservoirs_a_cause_for_concern.html?c=y&page=2
Pequannock braces for the worst
SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2011
BY STEVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER
When Mayor Rich Phelan took office on the afternoon of Jan. 1, there was no way for him to predict that within eight months, the township would see three major floods, one noticeable earthquake, and possibly a massive hurricane that could lead to even more flooding.
Now, somehow, what was once the extraordinary is becoming the routine, and Phelan said on Thursday afternoon that he's "seen this movie three times" and he's getting tired of it.
The script could take a dark turn, however, if Hurricane Irene slams into New Jersey at Category 3 strength, and brings the temperamental Pompton River back into the streets of Pequannock.
A native of Bound Brook, Phelan is no stranger to flooding, and he's anticipating that Irene will dwarf 1999's Hurricane Floyd, and be the worst storm to hit the area since 1984...or maybe even further back.
"If we get 11 inches of rain, you're looking at a hundred-year plus flood," he said.
The township will be employing all sorts of measures to keep citizens alert as the storm intensifies, from updating the website to reverse 911 calls to firemen and police knocking on doors, and officials stress that when authorities tell them to leave, that means it's time to go.
"We believe that the waters are going to rise very quickly once the heavy rains start to come," he said. "Some people want to ride these things out, but this could be different; it could be very ugly....we may not be able to get back in later."
Phelan said on Friday afternoon that on Governor Christie's order, the Pompton Lakes Dam was opened at 12 p.m. in order to drain the lake's water level by three feet and provide some storage, an unprecedented move that many municipalities below the dam have been calling for over the last two years.
Christie had a conference call with Phelan and three other area mayors - Katie Cole of Pompton Lakes, Chris Vergano of Wayne, and Mike DeFrancisci of Little Falls - where he said that he would "take a leap of faith" with them and open the gates.
"At least they're trying to do something," Phelan said. "It took us writing letters and going on TV to get him to react, but he did react."
When asked if he thought opening the gates would truly help, Phelan replied that "anything would help at this moment...anything."
Dave Robinson, the NJ Climatologist at Rutgers University, said that preparing for the worst might not be a bad idea.
"The potential is there for one of the more destructive storms on record for this state - but we're talking about potential," he said.
Although the storm has been vacillating between a Category 2 and Category 3, Robinson said that it's likely that it will be Category 1 by the time it hits New Jersey, although it might be possible for the storm to maintain it's power until it hits the Jersey Shore if it stays over the Atlantic long enough.
Robinson said that gusts may reach the 75 mph range on the ridge tops, but it would be unlikely for hurricane force winds to be sustained in the North Jersey area.
Unfortunately, it's the rains that will bring the troubles, and Robinson said that with the full reservoirs and a foot of rain, it would be possible to conceive of a scenario that mirrors the 1903 floods, which had the wettest storm on record and caused floods two feet above even the 1984 levels.
There are still many scenarios that could occur that end with Pequannock not getting pummeled, but if the storm continues on its course and the eye comes close to the Jersey Shore it would be a climatological anomaly.
If Irene comes ashore and moves inland as a hurricane, it would be just the third time that's happened, Robinson said, with the others occurring in 1821 and 1903.
This storm would mirror 1821 more, he said, because the 1903 storm came inland at Atlantic City and moved westward towards Trenton; the 1821 version "kind of came up the parkway."
"It's rare, but it's happened before," he said.
Regardless of what historical storm Irene ends up resembling, local officials are taking no chances.
Township Manager Dave Hollberg said that Irene's winds may lead to more problems than normal because of its potential for knocking down trees and destroying power lines.
"The combination of flooding with the potential for wind damage, power outages, and perhaps live electrical lines in flooded roads can be deadly if people are not paying attention," he said.
The township has been posting a "Weather Advisory Statement" on the Pequannock website, Peqtwp.org, that is being updated every three to six hours.
Evacuations may come early, and Hollberg said that if it looks like flooding is imminent, the town will be moving people out of the way while the roads are still dry.
"Be prepared," he advised residents. "Have a plan, have a kit, pay attention the weather reports, and if advised to evacuate, evacuate - don't wait."
Bobbi Jo Murphy, the Director of the township's Office of Emergency Management, said that the emergency shelter is in place, and will likely be at Pequannock Valley Middle School on the Newark-Pompton Turnpike.
A state of emergency has been declared by Governor Christie, and Murphy said that the First Aid Squad, Department of Public Works, Police Department and fire companies are on standby.
"The good thing is that we've been through so many floods that residents know what to expect, but I think this is going to be a whole new ballgame," she said.
Murphy expects more citizens at the emergency shelters as extended power outages occur, and people who don't normally see water end up flooded.
Greg Renna, chief of the Pequannock First Aid and Rescue Squad, said that this will be an "all hands on deck" situation for his 50 member crew, which will be ready to respond to medical emergencies that occur during the evacuation process.
The FAS will be mobilized from 7 p.m. Friday night to 7 p.m. Tuesday night, he said, but he's hoping that the storm weakening as it comes up the coast.
"A significant amount of rain could be quite devastating to this township...and its residents," he said.
David James, Chief of Engine Co. No. 1, said that the fire company is storing enough food for about four days in order to feed the 56-man crew while they're standing by or responding.
He reiterated the need for residents to leave when they're told, and was greatly concerned about the potential for downed power lines in the water, which could cut evacuation efforts off if severe enough.
"It adds a whole new danger to our job," he said. "We don't want to say no, but at some point during the storm we're going to have to say no; I can't jeopardize my men's safety because people didn't want to listen to the warnings and get out."
The biggest difference between this storm and previous floods, James said, is that this time, Pequannockis on its own.
The chief had conversations with Morris County's fire officials, and they informed him that there will be no mutual aid coming, no cavalry from Whippany or Boonton riding in to ease the burden on the township's weary firemen.
"They're having the same problems this time as we do," he said. "We're like John Wayne this time, we'll do what we have to do."
On top of this, many state resources that were previously available in March will be pushed further south towards the Shore areas in order to help those communities cope.
James is also concerned that if a major evacuation of New York City occurs, people will be coming this way looking for shelter in hotels that also might have to be eventually evacuated, such as the Best Western/Regency House on Route 23 north.
Bill Pereira, head of the Pequannock Department of Public Works, said that the storm drains are all clear, and the DPW is preparing for trees to come down and barricades to be put up.
"The guys have been through this drill before, so we try to move a little bit ahead of things by putting up barricades where we know they're going to be necessary," he said.
The township's wellhouses and sewer pump stations have also been checked and secured, but Periera said that the possibility of them failing due is "remote."
"That type of thing is not very likely unless we get something that's way off the charts...but the pumps do have to keep running throughout the storm, and it's something that we keep an eye on," he said.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/128487798_Hurricane_has_area_preparing_for_the_worst.html?c=y&page=3
Tall cranes rose up near the Pompton Lake Dam on Friday, Aug. 26, as work to clean and clear the dam progressed ahead of the pending storm.
Now, somehow, what was once the extraordinary is becoming the routine, and Phelan said on Thursday afternoon that he's "seen this movie three times" and he's getting tired of it.
The script could take a dark turn, however, if Hurricane Irene slams into New Jersey at Category 3 strength, and brings the temperamental Pompton River back into the streets of Pequannock.
A native of Bound Brook, Phelan is no stranger to flooding, and he's anticipating that Irene will dwarf 1999's Hurricane Floyd, and be the worst storm to hit the area since 1984...or maybe even further back.
"If we get 11 inches of rain, you're looking at a hundred-year plus flood," he said.
The township will be employing all sorts of measures to keep citizens alert as the storm intensifies, from updating the website to reverse 911 calls to firemen and police knocking on doors, and officials stress that when authorities tell them to leave, that means it's time to go.
"We believe that the waters are going to rise very quickly once the heavy rains start to come," he said. "Some people want to ride these things out, but this could be different; it could be very ugly....we may not be able to get back in later."
Phelan said on Friday afternoon that on Governor Christie's order, the Pompton Lakes Dam was opened at 12 p.m. in order to drain the lake's water level by three feet and provide some storage, an unprecedented move that many municipalities below the dam have been calling for over the last two years.
Christie had a conference call with Phelan and three other area mayors - Katie Cole of Pompton Lakes, Chris Vergano of Wayne, and Mike DeFrancisci of Little Falls - where he said that he would "take a leap of faith" with them and open the gates.
"At least they're trying to do something," Phelan said. "It took us writing letters and going on TV to get him to react, but he did react."
When asked if he thought opening the gates would truly help, Phelan replied that "anything would help at this moment...anything."
1903...or 1821...all over again?
Dave Robinson, the NJ Climatologist at Rutgers University, said that preparing for the worst might not be a bad idea.
"The potential is there for one of the more destructive storms on record for this state - but we're talking about potential," he said.
Although the storm has been vacillating between a Category 2 and Category 3, Robinson said that it's likely that it will be Category 1 by the time it hits New Jersey, although it might be possible for the storm to maintain it's power until it hits the Jersey Shore if it stays over the Atlantic long enough.
Robinson said that gusts may reach the 75 mph range on the ridge tops, but it would be unlikely for hurricane force winds to be sustained in the North Jersey area.
Unfortunately, it's the rains that will bring the troubles, and Robinson said that with the full reservoirs and a foot of rain, it would be possible to conceive of a scenario that mirrors the 1903 floods, which had the wettest storm on record and caused floods two feet above even the 1984 levels.
There are still many scenarios that could occur that end with Pequannock not getting pummeled, but if the storm continues on its course and the eye comes close to the Jersey Shore it would be a climatological anomaly.
If Irene comes ashore and moves inland as a hurricane, it would be just the third time that's happened, Robinson said, with the others occurring in 1821 and 1903.
This storm would mirror 1821 more, he said, because the 1903 storm came inland at Atlantic City and moved westward towards Trenton; the 1821 version "kind of came up the parkway."
"It's rare, but it's happened before," he said.
A new set of hazards
Regardless of what historical storm Irene ends up resembling, local officials are taking no chances.
Township Manager Dave Hollberg said that Irene's winds may lead to more problems than normal because of its potential for knocking down trees and destroying power lines.
"The combination of flooding with the potential for wind damage, power outages, and perhaps live electrical lines in flooded roads can be deadly if people are not paying attention," he said.
The township has been posting a "Weather Advisory Statement" on the Pequannock website, Peqtwp.org, that is being updated every three to six hours.
Evacuations may come early, and Hollberg said that if it looks like flooding is imminent, the town will be moving people out of the way while the roads are still dry.
"Be prepared," he advised residents. "Have a plan, have a kit, pay attention the weather reports, and if advised to evacuate, evacuate - don't wait."
Bobbi Jo Murphy, the Director of the township's Office of Emergency Management, said that the emergency shelter is in place, and will likely be at Pequannock Valley Middle School on the Newark-Pompton Turnpike.
A state of emergency has been declared by Governor Christie, and Murphy said that the First Aid Squad, Department of Public Works, Police Department and fire companies are on standby.
"The good thing is that we've been through so many floods that residents know what to expect, but I think this is going to be a whole new ballgame," she said.
Murphy expects more citizens at the emergency shelters as extended power outages occur, and people who don't normally see water end up flooded.
Greg Renna, chief of the Pequannock First Aid and Rescue Squad, said that this will be an "all hands on deck" situation for his 50 member crew, which will be ready to respond to medical emergencies that occur during the evacuation process.
The FAS will be mobilized from 7 p.m. Friday night to 7 p.m. Tuesday night, he said, but he's hoping that the storm weakening as it comes up the coast.
"A significant amount of rain could be quite devastating to this township...and its residents," he said.
David James, Chief of Engine Co. No. 1, said that the fire company is storing enough food for about four days in order to feed the 56-man crew while they're standing by or responding.
He reiterated the need for residents to leave when they're told, and was greatly concerned about the potential for downed power lines in the water, which could cut evacuation efforts off if severe enough.
"It adds a whole new danger to our job," he said. "We don't want to say no, but at some point during the storm we're going to have to say no; I can't jeopardize my men's safety because people didn't want to listen to the warnings and get out."
The biggest difference between this storm and previous floods, James said, is that this time, Pequannockis on its own.
The chief had conversations with Morris County's fire officials, and they informed him that there will be no mutual aid coming, no cavalry from Whippany or Boonton riding in to ease the burden on the township's weary firemen.
"They're having the same problems this time as we do," he said. "We're like John Wayne this time, we'll do what we have to do."
On top of this, many state resources that were previously available in March will be pushed further south towards the Shore areas in order to help those communities cope.
James is also concerned that if a major evacuation of New York City occurs, people will be coming this way looking for shelter in hotels that also might have to be eventually evacuated, such as the Best Western/Regency House on Route 23 north.
Bill Pereira, head of the Pequannock Department of Public Works, said that the storm drains are all clear, and the DPW is preparing for trees to come down and barricades to be put up.
"The guys have been through this drill before, so we try to move a little bit ahead of things by putting up barricades where we know they're going to be necessary," he said.
The township's wellhouses and sewer pump stations have also been checked and secured, but Periera said that the possibility of them failing due is "remote."
"That type of thing is not very likely unless we get something that's way off the charts...but the pumps do have to keep running throughout the storm, and it's something that we keep an eye on," he said.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/128487798_Hurricane_has_area_preparing_for_the_worst.html?c=y&page=3
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Irene's winds meet Hemingway's wisdom
BY STEVE JANOSKI
'Il faut (d’abord) durer.’
Supposedly it was Ernest Hemingway’s favorite saying, and, roughly translated from French, it means "One must (first) endure."
I would be lying if I said this wasn’t a phrase I had liberated for my own use after reading it some years ago, because if my limited experiences have taught me nothing else, it’s that often there comes a time when one must simply put their head down and move forward — as Churchill said, "If you’re going through hell, keep going."
As I write this on Friday afternoon, Hurricane Irene is bearing down on the North Carolina coast, and over the past week, the warnings for this area have vacillated from somewhere between "There’s going to be a lot of rain" to "Repent, for the end is nigh."
It’s yet unknown how hideous the storm will be when it strikes New Jersey, and its strength and the magnitude of the damage it causes may make these words seem entirely foolish by Wednesday, or at least defang them if the city streets remain dry due to a tragedy narrowly averted.
But one lesson that we can take from this storm, or even the threat of this storm, is the same one that we must carry away from all natural disasters: nothing, absolutely nothing, is guaranteed, and things in life can and will change in monumental ways without hesitation.
We all hear, of course, that there is a "reason" for every misfortune, but I’ve never thought that to be true.
I am no fatalist and a particularly weak believer in God, and I cast about between being some sort of bastardized deist to an agnostic depending what time of day you ask, so the idea that there is a "reason for everything" seems a naïve, foolish way to justify the curveballs (and sometimes the artillery shells) that life hurls at us.
Whether an event happened for a reason is simply irrelevant, and putting it in cosmic terms, such as suggesting that a space god deemed it necessary that this thing happen for such and such a purpose, is a waste of time.
What is no waste of time — what is completely necessary, in fact — is to simply determine to continue.
It goes without saying that this weekend will be hard on somebody, regardless if that somebody is in North Carolina, Maryland, or New Jersey, and that even if we don’t have to bear Irene’s hammering might, we will inevitably have to do so again when some disaster, be it public or private, befalls us.
If it does happen to be this weekend, though, it will be a frigid reminder that no matter how comfortable we get, how safe and secure in our happy little lives are, we are but a few powerless days away from being thrown into an unimaginable upheaval that would have been totally foreign to us but a week before.
Hopefully, we will take away lessons from this, because aside from proving the strength of our spines, learning is the only thing that these calamities are useful for.
Maybe we will learn to not build in flood basins and go toe-to-toe with nature, and dismiss the silly ideas of building 10-foot wide flood tunnels to Nutley as exactly what they are: silly ideas.
Maybe we will learn to live with and around the land a little bit better, because we know that when Nature rises up in her full fervor we can be swept from the table like so many plastic pawns.
This is my own conjecture, of course, and it’s more than likely that things will never change because of property tax rolls and political battles.
But for the regular people, the ones in Pequannock and Pompton Lakes and Lincoln Park, who will go through this storm and be worse off for it, there is nothing left to do but keep going.
Endure, once again.
E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/128859443_Some_thoughts__Irene_s_winds_meet_Hemingway_s_wisdom.html
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