When the remnants of Hurricane Ida blew through New Jersey Wednesday night into Thursday morning, the Jersey Shore was mostly spared from the devastation experienced across the state. To the south, multiple tornadoes left a path of destruction, including an EF-3 in Mullica Hills. To the north, torrential downpours led to deadly, destructive flooding in both North and Central Jersey, barely skirting the area.
But if history has shown us anything at the Shore, it’s that horrific storms missing this area is a fluke, not a pattern. And as our reporting has shown, climate change will only make the kind of impact seen around the state from Ida more common.
While the most recent evidence of climate change in the area has been fierce storms, don’t forget the heatwaves that also blanketed the state multiple times this summer. Those, too, are going to become more common and, with them, heat-related deaths could increase by as much as 55%.
The costs of NJ’s violent encounter with the remnants of Hurricane Ida — both human and economic — continued to rise today, 36 hours after the last raindrop fell.
The storm is now being blamed for 25 deaths, according to Gov. Phil Murphy — all in the northern half of the state, where rainfall totals routinely ran to eight inches.
The locations of the dead were one each in Bergen, Mercer and Passaic counties, as well as four in Essex, six in Hunterdon, three in Middlesex, four in Somerset and five in Union, including four whose bodies were discovered in the flooded basement of an apartment complex in Elizabeth.
There were no deaths associated with any of the three tornados that touched down in the state, including a now-confirmed EF-3 that devastated a suburban neighborhood in Gloucester County. (See National Weather Service chart above.)
In addition, six people are still missing, the governor said — three in Passaic, two in Somerset, and one in Essex.
Ida’s economic impact is still being tallied, both here and all along the cyclone’s path through the nation; insurance experts are preliminarily estimating that $15 billion to $18 billion in claims are likely.
During a visit today to the flooded downtown of Millburn in Essex County, Murphy announced the creation of a $10 million fund providing grants of up to $5,000 to Ida-damaged businesses with fewer than 50 employees.
Murphy stressed that it was only a preliminary step, designed to give small businesses immediate access to aid.
The governor also announced that the state has secured a federal disaster declaration for all 21 counties, a necessary step toward securing federal assistance.
For some NJ residents, the clean-up remains on hold as the waters of one the state’s most flood-prone rivers had yet to crest Friday.
Major flood levels were still being reported early this evening along the banks of the Passaic River in Passaic and Morris counties.
Federal flood gauges in Pine Brook and Little Falls had yet to show water levels dropping, with the crest in both locations not expected to occur until Saturday.
Levels fell along the Millstone River, a tributary of the Raritan, although two gauges were still showing moderate flood levels at 5 p.m.
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Water rescues continued Thursday in New Jersey, with first responders pulling people from submerged cars and rescuing families marooned in their homes by historic floods caused by the remnants of Tropical Storm Ida. Up to nine inches of rain fell in some towns Wednesday night, catching people — including officials — by surprise.
Water rushing from rising streams and rivers forced thousands out of their homes. New Jersey’s death toll now stands at 10. NJ Transit suspended all rail service except the Atlantic City Rail Line, and Newark Airport’s Terminal B remained closed due to flooding. More than 80,000 New Jerseyans lost power at the peak of the storm.
Gov. Phil Murphy said, “This is going to take us some time to dig out of … We’re going to stay here and be by the side of the residents and small businesses that have been impacted so severely.”
No-cost 4-million-ton carbon reduction is in New Jersey’s grasp
By Jim Gordon, President of Energy Management, Inc. (EMI)
Recently, I encouraged Atlantic City Electric/Exelon and the state of New Jersey to embrace Starwood Energy’s plan for the early retirement of the last two coal plants in New Jersey — at no additional cost to ratepayers, resulting in a 4-million-ton reduction in CO2 emissions.
Consistent with Gov. Phil Murphy’s call for a stronger and fairer New Jersey, Starwood, the owner of the last two coal plants, has proposed a plan to permanently retire both plants. These plants, in Logan and Carney’s Point, currently sell their electric output to Atlantic City Electric Co. (ACE, an Exelon company) under contracts extending through 2024. The plants would be closed by the end of 2021, and the remaining supply obligations would be met with power from the PJM market at the existing contract price, with no incremental cost to ratepayers.
Intervening developments make Starwood’s retirement proposal even more compelling today.
First, the August 2021 report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has heightened the urgency of reducing carbon emissions. “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred. Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has strengthened,” the report states.
Second, the contractual purchaser of the plants’ output (ACE/Exelon) has enhanced its public commitment to reducing carbon emissions: “It is Exelon’s position that there is compelling scientific evidence that increasing greenhouse-gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere are causing climatic changes and that the energy industry has a significant role to play in addressing this issue.” The company has committed to “drive overall emissions reductions at the grid level.”
Officials across NJ Thursday were assessing the damage wrought by the remnants of Hurricane Ida, which dropped 8 inches of rain in much of the northern part of the state and sparked twisters, including one that left a suburban section of Gloucester County resembling the Great Plains.
The storm is responsible for at least 23 deaths, Gov. Phil Murphy said this evening, including four who drowned in the basement of an apartment complex in Elizabeth.
Most others were motorists and passengers who got swept away in their vehicles by flash floods.
The death toll may rise as officials field reports of missing people.
More rain fell at Newark Airport yesterday (8.44 inches) than ever before, at least in terms of current records, according to the National Weather Service; Terminal B was closed for much of the day with flooding on its lower level.
Murphy, like his counterparts in neighboring states, declared a state of emergency and said he is seeking a disaster declaration from President Joe Biden.
All of the major rivers in the northern part of the state overflowed their banks in places during the deluge, in some cases at record-setting levels.
Water levels in many sections of the state started to recede today, but not all.
The Raritan River at Bound Brook remains at its crest, just shy of a record-setting high-water mark, and upstream the flood levels were just starting to go down after breaking a record.
Forecasters say the Passaic won’t crest in Little Falls and Pine Brook until Saturday, in both cases beyond the level that constitutes a major flood.
Similarly, the Delaware River has yet to recede in the area north of Trenton.
In the state’s capital city, where water levels are predicted to rise again tomorrow morning, Mayor Reed Gusciora late today urged residents in flood-prone sections to evacuate if they have not yet already done so.
The National Weather Service has confirmed three tornado touchdowns in the state associated with Ida, including one in the Mullica Hill section of Gloucester County where homes in a subdivision were literally blown apart.
The preliminary assessment of the Gloucester storm puts it at EF-3, which if confirmed, would make it the fifth twister in the state to reach that level of force (wind speeds as high as 165 mph) since 1950, according to records kept by Rutgers.
Authorities say many of the residents were home, but none died as warning systems gave them a chance to take shelter in the basement.
Murphy and a host of other officials visiting the neighborhood this morning and gave a briefing on the storm and recovery efforts statewide.
The second twister touched down in Edgewater Park in Burlington County, was rated at EF-1, with 90 mph winds.
A third hit, which hit Princeton, was rated at EF-0, with winds topping out at 75 mph
Murphy and other officials tied the storm and its severity to climate change, saying it presented definitive proof that more must be done to wean the nation from carbon-based fuels.
As tornadoes strike, horrified families watch their South Jersey homes explode around them
By Frank Kummer Philadelphia Inquier
Ashley Thomas thought she’d be spending Wednesday evening happily preparing for the first day of school at her Vineland classroom.
Instead, along with husband Troy and their two little girls, Ashley — who is due to deliver their third child in a month — cowered in the basement of their South Jersey home. Their phones blared alarms as a swirling black cloud bore down. First, it peeled off the second story of their home. Then the floorboards started to cave in, raining debris on the parents shielding their children.
Across the Philadelphia region, the remnants of Hurricane Ida touched down with devastating and terrifying force, its winds plowing through neighborhoods with barely any warning. Over nearly three hours Wednesday afternoon into evening, the National Weather Service issued 14 tornado warnings, many aimed at central Montgomery County. By Thursday evening, seven tornadoes were confirmed.
In Fort Washington, neighbors mourned Maxine Weinstein, whom they said died after a tree trapped her inside her home. “I’m not a weather person, but no one can tell me this wasn’t a tornado,” said her neighbor Mark Harris.
Countless homes and buildings had their roofs peeled back like paper with winds clocked at up to 130 mph. Experts were still assessing the data and damage, but likely the strongest came in South Jersey. There, the tornado that devastated some houses in Mullica Hill was so potent that it carried debris thousands of feet. Its top winds were 150 mph, the weather service said, an EF-3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale.
Tornadoes are hardly routine in this region. Before Wednesday, 26 had touched down on Pennsylvania soil this year, according to the government’s Storm Prediction Center. The 30-year normal for an entire year is 16. And normally, only two a year touch down in Jersey. As of Wednesday, 10 had.
“Everything happened so fast,” a stunned Thomas recalled Thursday morning, pointing down into a hole in a heap of rubble to show where they hid in their Mullica Hill home.
”The house literally fell on top of us,” she said. “Pipes were bursting. We said we have to get out of here before it explodes.”
Philly residents have ‘never seen anything like’ Ida’s historic flooding near Schuylkill River Trail
Drone 6 shows shocking flooding on Vine Street Expressway
https://youtu.be/HIO-PArg8qo\
Floodwaters engulf vehicles, shut down parts of Philadelphia to traffic
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