Cleanup underway in flood-ravaged Monmouth County neighborhoods
In the Wanamassa section of Ocean Township, several homes were flooded on Allenhurst Avenue.
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The waters have receded and left behind a mess in parts of Monmouth County.
In the Wanamassa section of Ocean Township, several homes were flooded on Allenhurst Avenue.
Bill Rosenblatt knew Monday’s storm was different.
“It was somewhere between 5 and 7 inches of rain in a few hours. I kept looking out the window and I saw the street starting to get high,” he said.
A makeshift wall was no match for the wake left behind from a passing truck.
“It produced a wave that I probably could have surfed on and knocked down the wall and water came flying down here,” said Rosenblatt.
Rosenblatt’s first thoughts were with his renters, a young couple with a 4-month-old baby.
“She was walking with the baby in probably thigh-high water,” he said.
Meanwhile, a few blocks away, flooding inundated an office complex. Manasquan High Water Rescue teams from the volunteer fire department raced north, assisting dozens.
“We rescued about 25 people from a corporate office. I believe it was a doctor’s office and a dental office. They said they have never seen water that high before,” said Manasquan Police Detective Sgt. Johne Ringo, the town’s deputy OEM coordinator.
Rosenblatt says the downstairs sheetrock, cabinets and furniture are all a total loss. But he and his rental family made it out unhurt.
“The storm, the loss of power and then we have the floods. What’s next, the locusts,” he jokingly asked.
Rosenblatt and his neighbors want to see Monmouth County declared a federal disaster area to open federal funding to help these victims recover and get back on their feet.
