Majority of Homes Damaged by Flood

About three-quarters of the 1,600 homes in the Village of Owego were damaged by last week's flood, Mayor Ed Arrington said Tuesday.

Arrington estimated the value of the damage to the village, where residents continue to salvage and discard waterlogged possessions, at between $6 million and $12 million.

"Their spirits are remarkable," Arrington said of village residents. "Nobody's jumping up and down, being disrespectful. ... They've been through it before."

Now, the village needs the rain to stay away, and also needs money to pay for unexpected expenses due to the flood, he said.

"Our budget is so tight that we're going to struggle to get through this year if we don't get reimbursement," he said.

The village will be charged about $300,000 for curbside refuse collection as residents and businesses discard destroyed furniture, books, electronics and other items, he said.

And a document recovery company is trying to salvage the village's paper records damaged by the flood, he said.

It could be a few more weeks before life is back to normal in the village, Arrington said.

In Owego, where some 400 homes were damaged in the flood, debris pickup has begun, town Supervisor Donald Castellucci Jr. said.

Most town roads are passable, but drivers should be cautious, especially on rural roads, he said.

"There's a lot of damage out there," Castellucci said, noting that the integrity of the roads could change daily because of runoff.

On Wicks Road in the town, Jim and Lisa Renda spent their third day piling their destroyed possessions on their lawn.

"Take me to the river!" one of them had spray-painted on the house, to which they don't plan to return.

The couple lived in the home for six years and renovated it after the 2006 flood. They had also started putting an addition on the house before the most recent flood came.

"We're going to look to take our equity and relocate," Jim Renda said. "Hopefully, still in Tioga County ... because we have an 11-year-old daughter that we don't want to move schools."

The Rendas also have relatives living in the county, all of whom were affected by the flood.

"My sister's house is gone, my brother's house is gone and my parents' house is in limbo," he said.

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More Flooding On Way

More flooding this week remained a possibility, as some rivers continued to rise.

In Ocean County, Toms River Mayor Thomas F. Kelaher said the north branch of the Toms River could crest Tuesday, causing more flooding. Route 571 near the river’s north branch at the Manchester-Toms River boundary was closed, according to Ocean County Freeholder Joseph H. Vicari, who said rising waters have damaged a bridge and repairs need to be made. Stormwater runoff from Hurricane Irene has been causing the river to rise.

At least four people were killed.

Yet along the Jersey Shore, the sum of Irene’s parts failed to match the shock and awe of the December 1992 storm, which caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and left large swaths of the state’s coast almost unrecognizable. While no one was killed in that storm, 55 homes in Monmouth and Ocean counties were destroyed, and another 13,000 were damaged.

For all the dire predictions, Irene, fortunately, didn’t come close that level of destruction.

“I was waiting for the storm this morning; I didn't realize it was over already,” said Damien Davis of Belmar, who rode out the storm with his mother.

“I thought it was going to be worse,” said Robert Hunziker, 76, of Bay Head, who was able to keep ahead of the water seeping into his basement with a Shop-Vac.

As of Sunday evening, the lone death attributed to the hurricane was that of a 20-year-old Salem County woman, Celena Sylvestri, of Quinton, who was found in her car, submerged in water in the Salem County community of Pilesgrove.

During a news conference Sunday, Gov. Chris Christie said a Princeton emergency worker had died during a swift water rescue. But a spokeswoman later said he was given inaccurate information and the firefighter was alive and in critical condition. On Monday, the Times of Trenton reported the worker -- Princeton rescue squad member Michael Kenwood, 39 -- died Monday morning.

Kenwood was part of a rescue team responding to a submerged car near a Princeton Township park. The car turned out to be empty.

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Water Pipe Burst at New Housing Development

A FAMILY was woken in the early hours of this morning (Sunday) when a pipe burst and flooded their house.

The husband and wife and their child were asleep in their home at the new housing development Wyckery Copse near Jennett's Park when a water pipe burst under the sink, filling the kitchen and dining room with about an inch of water.

Fire crews from Bracknell Fire Station were called to the house at 5am after the woman heard the sound of water running.

The firefighters turned the water pipe outside the property off and helped the family to clean up the house for around 20 minutes.

No lasting damaged was done to the house.

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