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Observations on Ivan's aftermath

I didn't think Ivan would affect New Jersey much, but I was wrong (though the effect was much less severe than what hit Pensacola). There was severe flooding along the Delaware River, just a couple of miles from where I work. On Monday, I drove across the Washington Crossing bridge into Pennsylvania, and looked over at the area where I often sit and read the Bible while eating a brown-bag lunch. It was under water, and on a normal day, the area is about six feet above the level of the river. I went back today, and the park benches were visible, but the ground was just gooey mud, almost completely covering all the grass that was growing there, and it was thick heavy grass. I'd guess about three new inches of topsoil have been added to the banks of the Delaware in this spot.

Looking back on my personal experience with hurricanes, the one time I think I was the most scared was when Floyd came through here several years ago, in 1999 I think. Amy was a student at the University of the Arts then, and she had gone in to Philadelphia to work on some projects (she's a potter). I had gone to Somerville to a special work-related training class. The rain started coming down around 10 am, and before noon they told us to go home. The problem was, Somerset county was flooded. I had to take many detours before getting out of there, and chose to go to my mother-in-law's house in Princeton instead of going home to East Windsor, since Princeton is closer to the train station where I would be picking Amy up later. Once arriving, I tried to call her on the cell phone, message service picked up on first ring - her phone's turned off. Turn on the phone Amy!! I call the university switchboard, they give me the number of the Merriam theater which the University runs. They don't know how to contact Amy, they're several blocks away. Over and over and over I call - turn on the d*** phone! Don't you know there's a hurricane coming through! Get home now! After several hours, news of flooding everywhere, Amy calls me about 3:00 in the afternoon from the Princeton Junction train station. God only knows how the train got through, one of the news reports showed police evacuating people from homes in Trenton in canoes, just a couple of blocks from the train station. I go pick her up, the water is way over the curb, no sidewalks are visible, the street has turned into a lake, and I wouldn't dare be out there except that I'm picking up my wife, who should've ....well, calm down, there she is, and we're going home now. I'm glad she's ok, we find a way home, and enjoy the rest of the watching movies. God was surely looking out for us then, and we weren't even Christians at the time.

UPDATE: Just thought of this - I grew up in West Texas where tornadoes were a common occurence. Tornadoes are certainly deadly, but not nearly as destructive as hurricanes, but don't tell that to my family - we've had many bad experiences, including deaths (not in this generation thankfully), due to them. I remember sleeping in the basement on many occasions, sometimes even spending my afternoons after school down there. Ironically, during the one tornado that wiped out a couple of streets in our town, the sirens didn't blow until all the damage was done. Miraculously, even though many homes were destroyed, there were no deaths.

Posted by Joel Fuhrmann at September 22, 2004 10:40 PM