Nearly 7 Years After Sandy, Hoboken Remains Vulnerable to Storm Flooding

(ABOVE: Flooding on 10th & Clinton Streets—July 17, 2019 | Jules Ferrer photo)

With the remnants of Hurricane Barry rolling through our area Wednesday night, Hoboken once again found itself underwater.

While the impact wasn’t as severe or direct as Sandy, residents will tell you that flooding is flooding—and Hoboken continues to find itself vulnerable to flooding when major systems impact our area.

Hoboken is flooded as per usual. pic.twitter.com/0QdVH3K76a

— MK (@megtkel) July 18, 2019

Flooding in Hoboken isn’t new… nor are the pledges to fix it. The City of Hoboken recently announced the opening of a “resiliency park” that has a detention system able to, “withhold 450,000+ gallons of rain to mitigate flooding.”

You may not see it now at our new park at 7th/Jackson but installed underground is a detention system to withhold 450,000+ gallons of rain to mitigate flooding. Our parks are a part of a comprehensive strategy to make Hob more resilient from heavy rain, effects of climate change pic.twitter.com/DH5g5SQRzL

— Ravinder S. Bhalla (@RaviBhalla) July 1, 2019

The resiliency parks are part of an ongoing effort to fortify the City of Hoboken against just such occurrences. A few blocks away from to the newly opened park will be a larger park—set to break ground later this year. Last February, the City pledged that it would fix chronic, costly flooding near ShopRite—between the two parks.

Here’s how that area looked on Wednesday night:

Birds eye view (at least that car thought better)…hope the next storm band doesn’t make it much worse #hoboken @hMAG @News12NJDesk @phenomejon15 @rikemieker pic.twitter.com/S3LQFZ3QA0

— Joseph Cristofaro (@JoeCristofaro) July 18, 2019

Other perennial flooding scenes unfolded, with parts of our region seeing in excess of 3 inches of rainfall over the span of a few hours.

Current scene in SW #Hoboken.#Flooding pic.twitter.com/TvjrtARIR9

— hMAG (@hMAG) July 18, 2019

And while rainwater can be troublesome enough, densely populated Hoboken’s problems become complicated by issues flushed out by that rain…

Wish I had a smellaphone 😂😂🤦🏻‍♀️🤮#Hoboken 😂#flooding pic.twitter.com/YKwqZwTyJV

— SUSAN TEE (@SusanTeeFitness) July 18, 2019

With climate change increasingly evident while development continues in the back end of Hoboken—including a 14-story, 424-unit building in the center of one of the most flood-prone areas—the City will likely continue to face these challenges and more.

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