At the beginning of this school year, in the first few days before classes started, I got a text from a friend from high school that read; "dude is ur mom okay". I responded to this strange text; "lmao wdym?". He then responded with the two most ominous pictures I've ever seen with the caption "Lambertville is underwater". My small town in New Jersey, which is located directly on the Delaware River was, in fact, underwater! I called my parents and, thankfully, they were both safe, as well as our friends and family that live in the area.
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| Flooding up to the 2nd floor in an apartment complex near my house. |
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| A car floating down Main St. |
This flooding, you might be wondering, was caused by a hurricane called Ida, a category 4 hurricane. A category 4 storm means that it can have winds of up to 150 miles per hour, according to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, and can cause catastrophic damage. The further from the eye of the storm you get, the less the effects will be felt, however a storm of this magnitude can often be felt from tens of miles of the center. Ida landed in Louisiana, swept up through Tennessee, the Virginas and swallowed most of New England and the Tristate Area on its way back out into the Atlantic.
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| Ida's trajectory. |
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| The eye of Ida. |
Its effect on New Jersey was the most notable, clocking in at the second most deadly storm to hit the state since Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Over 35 New Jersey residents died, more than any other state affected. Most became trapped in their vehicles that had become overtaken by floodwaters, as the storm came on much more quickly than anticipated.
Thankfully, no one we knew was hurt in the storm, but many peoples’ homes, including ours, were severely damaged. Due to all the rain, the Delaware overflowed, rising by a few feet, and since we live so close to the river, our basement filled all the way to the first floor with water and mud. It rendered most everything down there useless, our water heater, our holiday decorations and a lot of my mom’s work supplies. The sheer amount and force of the water swept away many peoples’ parked cars, our neighbor's Honda was found on the other side of town the day after the rain stopped.
The main issue my mom had in the aftermath of the hurricane was shoveling mud out of our basement and bringing out the things that were destroyed so that garbage trucks could take them away. However, the removal of the trash was a slow process, so like many other storm-stricken towns, the streets were lined with tall piles of muddy garbage for many weeks.
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| The waterline in our basement. |
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| Our basement from the top of the stairs. |
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| A huge pile of trees ripped up by Isa. |
Over six months later, our town has mostly recovered from Ida, the only remnants of the storm remain in empty storefronts and wide streams lined with downed trees that used to be narrow, winding creeks. Although I wasn’t in New Jersey when Ida hit, I was there in 2012 when Sandy caused even worse damage to our town, so I could imagine what the people of Lambertville were going through. However, when you live in a small town neighbors support neighbors, so my family got all the help they needed and gave it back in return. Sources: - https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/new-jersey/2021/09/02/storm-ida-2021-deadliest-storms-hit-new-jersey/5704497001/ - https://www.nola.com/news/hurricane/article_2491bc82-081f-11ec-88fb-7b39be0fddea.html
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