Holiday no picnic in Irene's N.J. wake
Instead of having fun, flooded homeowners were hard at work cleaning up.
FAIRFIELD, N.J. - Labor Day turned out to be more work than fun for thousands of New Jersey residents still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Irene.
Instead of firing up barbecue grills and kicking back with a couple of cold ones, residents in many hard-hit towns spent their holiday sorting through ruined belongings and going through bottles of bleach to clean up the mess.
"This is a great neighborhood for block parties, lots of kids running up and down the street," Nino Capra said as he took a break from lugging soggy sandbags out to the curb, where they took their place alongside what looked like an entire houseful of furniture, carpets, old record albums, and other items.
On Monday, though, the mood was subdued as piles of belongings dominated the view in front of house after house on the neat, well-kept block. Capra said a contractor had already estimated the damage to his house at more than of $150,000.
It was far from the type of Labor Day they'd envisioned before Irene flooded their block and left it swimming in a concoction that had the color and consistency of lentil soup.
"Normally we'd be right here, barbecuing," Capra said. "Now we're right here, working. We bought some pizza and we'll probably eat it cold later."
Just east, in Little Falls, most of the barbecue grills in evidence were those sitting on curbs or in backyards, covered with caked river mud. A jettisoned Jacuzzi lay face down on a pile of waterlogged items in front of one house.
"If not for this, I'd probably be at a barbecue instead of waiting for PSE&G to come and turn on my gas," said Bill Baumann, who added that his house had 18 inches of water in the basement for the first time since he could remember.
Others fared worse in Baumann's neighborhood, which is shaped like a triangle and bounded on two of the three sides by the Passaic River.
"There are some people here who are just finishing renovations from flooding in the spring," said Joe Cardinale, a friend of Baumann's. "Now with all the rain they're forecasting this week, they might get hit again." Forecasters were predicting rain for much of the next four days in North Jersey.
The rain had already hit northwestern New Jersey by Monday morning, but it didn't dampen the mood at Russell Bellis' camping trailer, where he and his family were staying after their house in Branchville, Sussex County, was badly damaged.
"It was too wet to cook out, but we still had fun," Bellis said.
Bellis, a firefighter in Branchville for 32 years whose wife and children have followed in his footsteps, had helped others pump out their homes a week earlier while his own was flooded with 10 feet of water.
"You're out there helping people and you never think your own home is going to be destroyed," he said. "I've lived in Branchville my whole life and I've never seen it like this."