South Jersey community remains partially flooded as more rain expected Friday
EDGEWATER PARK, N.J. (CBS) — A community in Edgewater Park, New Jersey, remains partially flooded following Tuesday night's storms. The Silver Park West neighborhood off Route 130 was particularly hard hit as firefighters evacuated 15 homes in the neighborhood.
Leslee Loftus said she was stunned when water rushed into her house.
"I got up, put my feet on the floor, and I was ankle-deep in water," Loftus said. "I had no idea — no idea — that it was raining that hard."
She said the entire first floor of her house was covered in water.
"I don't know how rain can come up and go in your house," Loftus said. "I mean, my rugs are soaked. When you step on the rugs, they squish."
Several doors down from Loftus, firefighters evacuated Betty Kaiser Tuesday night by boat.
"As far as I could see was water. It's like I was living in the middle of a lake," Kaiser said. "It was very scary."
When she came back Wednesday morning, she found only her garage and enclosed porch sustained water damage.
"I can deal with that. The living quarters weren't touched, thank God," Kaiser said. "It could've been so, so much worse, so I just thank God that it wasn't."
Meanwhile, Loftus is trying to figure out her next steps.
She doesn't have flood insurance, which she explained to someone over the phone.
"When I bought the house, we didn't need flood insurance," Loftus said. "So he said to me, 'Well you do.' I said, 'Well, that doesn't help.'"
Many homeowners in the community remain nervous as more rain is expected in the area throughout the week.
"With the weather conditions the way they're going, it seems like every year it's getting worse and worse and worse," Dan Halpren said. "Something has to be done to correct this or everybody's going to be flooded out."
Hit by flooding, Bucks County preparing for next round of rain
From water rescues to power outages and a partial building collapse, Tuesday night's storms hit Bucks County hard.
After the relentless rain, some roads remained partially flooded Wednesday afternoon. Cars and trucks ignored road closed signs and drove right through the water in the 2900 block of State Road in Bensalem.
"It was pouring and most of it, luckily, was straight down and really really hard," Gale Vanselous said.
"The street was almost all solid water running down," Tom Vanselous said, as he described the storm in Croydon.
Tom and Gale Vanselous were left in the dark for several hours Tuesday night. Gale says she was trying to sleep when the storms rolled through.
"My oxygen machine kicked off, which woke me up, so my hubby came into the bedroom and said we just lost our power," Gale said.
Across the street in the 900 block of Cedar Avenue, heavy rain and the weight of the water caused part of the roof at Btec Manufacturing Solutions to collapse. Workers were still inside at the time, but luckily, in another section of the building.
"They were all incredibly smart and instantly communicated to get out of the building in case anything more was occurring, so I give them huge props for that," said Blake Cherry, who works at Btec.
"These were the boats that were out going to all the calls," Fire Chief Thomas Tryon said, pointing to the swift water rescue boats inside the Croydon Fire Company.
Tryon said his crews responded to multiple water rescues in Bristol Township Tuesday night after drivers got stuck in floodwaters. He said recently that section of Bucks County has been hit hard.
"We have a little bit more to deal with here because not only do we deal with the event when it happens, but we have the water that comes down from the rest of the county," Tryon said.
With Debby's remnants headed our way Chief Tryon says he is getting crews in place to be on standby come Friday with more rain and storms expected.
