Arduous cleanup starts after East Coast floods

updated 6:07 p.m. ET July 1, 2006

TRENTON, N.J. - Some residents of cities and towns flooded by the Delaware River struggled to clean up debris and waterlogged possessions Saturday but many others were still waiting to return to their homes.

Thousands of New Jersey residents were evacuated on Wednesday and Thursday, joining thousands of others who fled rising water across the river in Pennsylvania and upstream in New York state following a record rain storm.

People still out of their homes were waiting for local and state inspectors to give them the go-ahead as the high water moved downstream, said Capt. Jerome Hatfield of the state’s Office of Emergency Management.

“We started the process yesterday up north, and people are getting back in today, though not in large numbers,” he said.

High water recedes
The National Weather Service said the river had fallen below flood stage throughout the region by early Saturday.

Police and fire teams worked on Saturday to pump water out of basements in The Island, a Trenton neighborhood bordering the Delaware that has absorbed the worst of three major floods in the area since the fall of 2004.

Danny Thomas, an Island resident through all three floods, said the damage did not look as severe as last year’s, when some people had 5 feet of water in their basements.

“And no, I’m not selling,” Thomas said. “When I was in Virginia I lived on the Potomac, and when I was in Uganda I lived on the Nile, so I must like living near water.”

Resigned to damage
Upriver in Warren County, Harmony Township resident George and Cathy Kelchner had started cleaning their home that sits within 150 yards of the Delaware.

Slide show   Deadly deluge Days of torrential rains force evacuations, wash out roads and cause several deaths along the East Coast.

“It’s the same routine,” George Kelchner said. “An inch of water is like 2 feet of water. It doesn’t make any difference because once you get the floor and carpets ruined, it’s still the same amount of work to replace them.”

Representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were touring the state Saturday to assess damages.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine on Friday asked President Bush to declare the state a major disaster area. There was no immediate indication when a decision on federal assistance would be made.

Bush issued a disaster declaration Saturday for eight New York counties struck by the flooding, state officials said.

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