California man traveling cross country loses RV and car in Edgewater, N.J. flooding
EDGEWATER, N.J. -- Flooding forced people to be evacuated from a hotel in Bergen County.
In Edgewater, cars are still water-logged in a parking lot that flooded almost a week ago.
"My car and my RV are totally submerged," Joshua Pierson said.
And it wasn't just an RV. It was Pierson's home for the past month as he traveled across the country.
"I'm dumbfounded. I'm in a place of purgatory, per se. I don't know," Pierson said.
Pierson is traveling from California, and stayed at the Comfort Inn in Edgewater early last week as a break from RV living, not knowing that he parked in a flood-prone lot in the middle of a rainstorm. He said hotel staff told him the lot flooded in 10 minutes late Tuesday night and insisted that they called his hotel room.
"I never got the call. They didn't try my cellphone. They didn't knock on the door. So I woke up in the morning to the Hudson River," Pierson said.
Some water-logged cars were being towed out of the still-flooded lot Sunday. The flooding peaked on Saturday, when guests had to evacuate on a military vehicle.
Being from California, Pierson's car insurance doesn't cover flooding. He also had a rental car that got caught in the flood. The tow truck driver had to take his shoes and socks off to get the job done.
"So you're looking at $20,000, maybe about $70,000 that's just gone," Pierson said.
READ MORE: Latest storm makes flood conditions even worse in Passaic County, New Jersey
CBS New York viewers make recognize the lot. We brought you the same type of story around Christmas in 2022, when the lot also flooded and then froze over days later, locking several cars in. Hotel staff on Sunday said the lot is not owned by Comfort Inn and that the hotel is not responsible.
"They should be held responsible, or they should be held responsible to make changes," Pierson said. "I paid money to have my property destroyed, to lose everything. I paid for that."
Pierson said he is trying to figure out how he can get everything towed out before potential icing as temperatures drop this week.
The hotel is individually franchised and its staff says no one would be available to comment until Monday.
