Community Corner

The Aftermath of the Storm in Scotch Plains-Fanwood

Area residents and officials are still working to clean up basements and clear street debris.

Scotch Plains and Fanwood residents and officials are spending Monday cleaning up the remaining damage caused by the weekend's heavy rainstorm.

Scotch Plains Fire Department Chief Jonathan Ellis told Patch that his team is using Monday to finish up work on a few home basement floods. The fire department worked all weekend — from 1 p.m. Saturday to 1 a.m. Sunday, then 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday — helping to pump water out of basements across the township. In total, firefighters responded to about 80 flooded basements, some which were completely filled with water.

"It was a rough weekend," Ellis said.

In addition to home flooding, the fire chief said that three houses in the township were struck by lightning during the storm. The impact caused damage to the home electrical systems, but thankfully did not spark any fires.

Power outages were also reported on the south side of town.

The Route 22 W ramp in Scotch Plains is reopened after it was shut down this weekend due to flooding. Parts of W. Broad Street, Mountain and Hunter avenues and other intersections in town were also closed off at points during the storm.

Scotch Plains Police Lt. Brian Donnelly said the department had to call in additional officers on emergency need to monitor the flooded areas this weekend.

"The roads are all open right now," Donnelly said. "We're just clearing some trees, debris that had fallen, making sure the roadways are safe. The DPW does an excellent job."

Donnelly noted that there were no accidents or injury calls over the weekend. The township also had no trees fall on houses or vehicles.

Over in Fanwood, firefighters spent the weekend pumping water out of the basements of between 15 and 20 homes, said police Det. Eugene Chin. Unlike some of those in Scotch Plains, Chin said none in Fanwood were completely filled with water.

A portion of North Avenue between Morse and Midway avenues was closed during the storm, but that roadway and other intersections that were temporarily blocked off are now open.

"We were very lucky," Chin said. "No trees down, no downed wires."

Neighboring Westfield and Cranford weren't as fortunate. In Westfield, the storm uprooted two large trees that fell on homes, one on Shadowlawn Drive and one on North Avenue.

In Cranford, the heavy rains caused the Rahway River to rise as high as 8 feet. Many submerging vehicles parked in the street and prompting the town to open an emergency evacuation shelter at Orange Avenue School. The lake in Nomahegan Park consumed most of the park Saturday night with the gazebo being covered in roughly a foot of water. A group of deer was waiting standing on the side of Springfield Avenue across from Union County College, having been flooded out of the woods.

Firefighters there also had to rescue a 13-year-old boy, who was found clinging to a tree in Sunday morning's flood waters. Media reports say that the boy had been using a kayak to get around the flooded Eastman area of town when the boat capsized, throwing him into the water. Firefighters responded to the scene at about 10:36 a.m and rescued the boy, who was beginning to lose his grip and suffering from early stages of hypothermia.

Are you still working to recover from the storm? We want to hear your story. E-mail us at Lindsay@patch.com.

Editor's note: information from Westfield and Cranford Patches was used in this report.


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