I want to begin by thanking every member of our community for your patience, cooperation, and resilience in the face of yesterday’s flash flooding. The storm produced significantly more rainfall than forecasted, reaching a peak 15-minute intensity of 2.96 inches per hour, which unfortunately coincided with high tide. Our city can often see flooding in low-lying areas if we get any rain over 0.8 inches per hour. Although our flood mitigation systems were in place and functioning, the combination of an already saturated ground, extremely heavy rain, and high tide created serious challenges throughout the city yesterday afternoon and evening.
The H1 and H5 flood pump stations were online and fully operational throughout the event. The H1 Pump Station ran for approximately six hours and pumped about 12 million gallons of water, while the H5 Pump Station operated for around five hours and pumped approximately 10 million gallons. Despite these efforts, and our three resiliency parks filling to capacity at 3 million gallons total, several low-lying streets had to be closed for your safety, especially in our southwest neighborhood.
We received reports from the Office of Emergency Management that some of our automated floodgates did not deploy as intended due to insufficient battery. The manufacturer has already been alerted and will be on site on Monday to inspect the affected gates and install upgraded batteries and other enhancements, which should hopefully resolve the issue moving forward. In all cases where automatic deployment did not occur, the gates were lowered manually by City crews to block flooded intersections and roadways. Unfortunately, there were several instances in which some individuals took it upon themselves to either raise these gates or move barricades from flooded intersections, causing vehicles to stall.
During storm operations, emergency dispatch received seven calls for disabled vehicles that were obstructing roadways and needed to be towed in southwest Hoboken alone. Grove Street remained closed longer than expected because of the time required to tow several vehicles in Jersey City from this key gateway to our City. Our team communicates the same message loud and clear in advance of every storm: please do not move barricades or drive through flooded areas. We barricade streets for your safety and the safety of others because driving through flooded areas can not only leave you stranded, but it can block an emergency vehicle from getting to someone in need during a crisis, significantly impacting emergency response times. Thankfully, residents in our community are okay, and no one was significantly affected.
Throughout the event, the Hoboken Police Department, Fire Department, and EMS, received over 100 calls for service including reports of flooding, the need for medical assistance, motor vehicles accident reports, and more. Their coordinated efforts, along with City crews overseen and organized by the Hoboken Office of Emergency Management, helped protect residents, manage flooded intersections, and ensure that essential services continued despite the blocked roads. Due to our mitigation efforts, roadways were cleared and reopened within approximately four hours of the storm’s peak intensity, and within less than two hours in many locations.
I want to extend my sincere gratitude to the Hoboken Police Department, Hoboken Fire Department, Hoboken EMS, the Office of Emergency Management, the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Public Works, and all City staff for their hard work during and after the storm. Their dedication ensured that normal conditions were restored quickly. I am also grateful to the City staff that remain out on our streets today removing debris left from the storm. Waste collection will occur as regularly scheduled tonight, including garbage, non-metal furniture, and mattresses, which can be placed at the curb in residential areas after 7:30 p.m. and on Washington Street after 9 p.m. For the full waste collection schedule, go to https://www.hobokennj.gov/resources/waste-collection.
This storm once again demonstrated that while Hoboken’s flood mitigation infrastructure has made significant progress, intense short-duration rainfall events combined with high tides can still test the limits of our system. The good news is that our flood pumps with the North Hudson Sewerage Authority operated as designed, and our roads were cleared within a few hours of the storm’s peak.
Thank you once again for your understanding and cooperation.
Sincerely,
Ravi S. Bhalla
Mayor
