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PHALON'S FILE - 5/14/2008
(by Joe Phalon - OpEd Columnist - May 14, 2008)
The Memorial Day flood
For those of you old enough to remember – like me (barely) – the end of this month will be 40 years since the Memorial Day flood of 1968.
There were floods before and there have been since. Particularly bad floods hit in 1955 and 1984.
But the 1968 flood was especially jarring. The North Jersey area had been parched by several years of drought-like conditions. By the summer of 1967, most towns had placed some level of restrictions on water use. If you were caught watering and didn't have a green "Well Water Used" sticker in your window, you could get a big fine. Until I was 10 I thought grass was supposed to be yellow.
Precipitation returned with a vengeance in 1968.
Records indicate that the 1955 flood was more severe than the inundation of 1968, but there was one big difference: The postwar population boom had not quite reached the outer suburbs. Most towns in 1955 had a fraction of the population they have by 1968, after massive subdivisions swallowed up farms and orchards across North Jersey.
So when the ’68 flood hit, it was quite a jolt.
Rain fell for most of the week preceding Memorial Day. The holiday was on a Thursday in 1968. It would be a few more years until our major holidays were observed on Mondays.
The first indication in my house that something was amiss was when we learned Wednesday night that the Memorial Day parade had been canceled. As this was my first year as a Cub Scout, I was pretty bummed I would not be marching in the parade.
Pequannock Valley Park was supposed to open on Memorial Day as well. I rode my bike toward the park and was astonished to find the streets leading there underwater. Town employees were just setting up barricades.
Heading home, I noticed there was virtually no traffic on the Newark-Pompton Turnpike. I rode south toward Pequannock, further than I was allowed to go, but the fire trucks blocking the road near the railroad tracks got the better of my curiosity. The Turnpike was completely underwater. From the embankment of the tracks I could see cars completely submerged on Greenwood Ave.
I raced back home, hoping that the news I was bringing would spare me grounding by my parents for going so far. It did, for the most part, although I was admonished to not do it again or forfeit my new Columbia bike for the summer.
We all piled into our 1966 Ford and looked around. We could not get near Route 23 but saw film of the newly opened Grants City, the current location of the Pompton Plains A&P, with water halfway up the windows. I had never heard my town mentioned on TV before that. And I was surprised there were so many ways to mangle the pronunciation of "Pequannock" by New York newscasters.
These scenes would repeat themselves, only worse, 16 years later. Fortunately we've had nothing as severe since then, but even minor floods damage homes and lives.
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