The Shore’s Rainy Nightmare
They say a picture is worth a thousand words and if that’s true then you would have needed millions to describe what we saw in Brick, Howell, Lakewood and other areas of the Jersey Shore on Monday.
Torrential rain from a slow-moving system produced flooding and turned streets into raging rivers with the National Weather Service reporting as much as 8 inches of rain fell in a matter of just a few hours. The Greenbriar One retirement community in Brick had to be evacuated with residents taken to the Laurelton firehouse in a scene reminiscent of Superstorm Sandy.
The development, just off Burnt Tavern Road saw incredible flooding with residents rescued by boats as water reached the tops of cars and homes suffered significant damage from the record-breaking rain.
What made it all so devastating was the speed at which flooding occurred. One minute you had a puddle and the next more like a lake. It was not the kind of situation that people could prepare for and clearly caught many off guard and made it challenging for first responders. Just a few miles away you had areas that while hit with a lot rain had nothing beyond some mild flooding as it was a much localized situation.
Many of us have likely watched this summer as wild weather has hit much of the nation with some experts saying a split jet stream is at least partly to blame for the extreme patterns experienced from coast to coast.
Floods, tornadoes, record-breaking heat and humidity and of course the western fires fueled by strong winds have been making headlines elsewhere and Monday at least a bit of that hit right here at home.