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John Makely / NBC News
Miatid Amini makes his way with his family onto a truck in Moonachie, N.J., on Tuesday. Frank Mercadante, right, assists.
TETERBORO, N.J., Updated at 3:15 p.m. ET — Residents of four northern New Jersey towns inundated when a levee failed to hold back Sandy's storm surge said Tuesday that they were terrified to see a torrent of water racing through their streets.
"Around 10 p.m. (Monday) water just started rushing down the street ... there was no stopping it," said Stefania Davi, 34, of Little Ferry, one of the four Bergen County boroughs hit by the floodwaters. Two hours later, it burst through the family's garage door. "We're doomed," Davi remembered thinking.
Davi, a mother of three boys, and her husband, Salvatore, were among hundreds of residents of Moonachie, Little Ferry, South Hackensack and Hackensack drying out and trading hugs and tears early Tuesday at the Bergen County Technical High School in Teterboro.
There also were tales of dramatic rescues.
Frank Lofaro, 32, said he jumped on his Jet Ski to help ferry about a dozen of his neighbors in Little Ferry to waiting rescue boats.
"We'll do our own share," he remembered thinking, though he acknowledged he was scared piloting the personal watercraft through the water.
John Makely / NBC News
The flood aftermath in Moonachie, N.J., on Tuesday.
He also used the Jet Ski to take his wife, Angela Valenta, 37, their two children and their 5-year-old dog, Lucky Leo, to the rescue boats.
Valenta said her son, 9-year-old Angelo, was crying during the flooding. "He kept saying, 'Am I going to die?'" she said.
There were conflicting accounts on whether the levee protecting the towns broke or was overtopped.
The National Weather Service issued a statement Tuesday morning saying that "portions" of the towns were submerged after the levee broke. But Jeanne Baratta, a spokeswoman for Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan, said the flooding occurred after the swollen Hackensack River overflowed its banks, Reuters reported.
Watch aerials from WCAU of the devastation from Sandy along the New Jersey Shore. Raw video.
She told the New Jersey newspaper, The Record that the towns, along with parts of Carlstadt, had been "devastated" by the flood of water. And she said that as many as 1,000 residents had to leave their homes and that people in a trailer park had to climb onto the roofs of their trailers to await rescue, NBCNewYork.com reported.
Among those evacuating residents were members of an extended family from the area with a military-style transport cargo truck. By mid-afternoon, they had ferried an estimated 275 passengers, including a pregnant woman, children and pets, to the shelter and other stops in the truck, which had rubber bats and lights inside from recent duty as a Halloween ride.
During a trip into the flood zone residents waved the truck down as it plowed through several feet of standing water, or simply waved and cheered the crew on.
"People in need, that's what we're all about," said John Mercadante, 47, president of a medical imaging center in Clifton.
One of those they plucked up from their flooded doorstep was Russell Gassler, 56, and his mother, Claire, 80. The younger Gassler, a driver for a paint business, said his street was "bone dry" until the water started "raging" down it.
"It just came, the waves," he said. "I just couldn't believe it."
Little Ferry Mayor Mauro Raguseo, who was greeting fellow residents at the Teterboro shelter, was unable to shed any light on the cause. "All we were told is that it's a levee problem," he said.
Raguseo said that rescues were continuing early Tuesday afternoon.
"I'm just concerned at the moment for the people that are still in their homes," he said.
John Makely / NBC News
Laura Wyer sits with her dog Bailey in the Bergen County Technical School on Tuesdayafter being evacuated from her home in Moonachie, N.J.
Davi and her husband and three boys watched nervously through the night, "just praying and praying" as the floodwater lapped at the threshold of their raised first-floor living quarters.
It never came in, though, before the family was rescued by boat early Tuesday, along with their 2-year-old Cocker Spaniel, Rosie.
Davi, who was able to grab some family photos and computers before climbing into the boat, said she was feeling optimistic that her family would soon be back on its feet despite the ordeal.
"Today's a new day and tomorrow will be another one," she said. "I survived cancer. I can survive a flood."
Levee break Borough of Moonachie Bergen County. nixle.us/83P77
— NJSP - State Police (@NJSP) October 30, 2012
But Mayor Raguseo said he was among the residents to feel the Sandy's full sting.
"I've lost everything as well,” he said of the home that he moved into six months ago. "It's just devastating."
Rescuers are going door-to-door to save residents in Moonachie, N.J. stranded by floodwater caused by Sandy.
Andrew Burton / Getty Images
Superstorm Sandy made landfall Monday evening on a destructive and deadly path across the Northeast.
More content from NBCNews.com:
- The big picture: Assessing Sandy's devastation
- Live updates on superstorm Sandy
- Northern N.J. towns submerged when surge overcomes levee
- 50 homes burn as six-alarm blaze rips through Queens
- Storm seen as unlikely to delay election
- The superstorm, by the numbers
- Water surges into lower Manhattan as superstorm blasts through
- PhotoBlog: Images of Sandy's devastation
- The stay-behinds: Residents tell why they defied evacuation order
- Your images of Sandy's fury
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Obama has been asking for infrastructure money for four years. Republicans have rejected all requests. So this would be a difficult issue for Republicans to raise.
There is absolutely no doubt that the US needs to invest in infrastructure. We have neglected our infrastructure for years. The last time anyone spent significant money on infrastructure was when Eisenhower was in office, which makes it over fifty years. At one time, Republicans recognized the importance of infrastructure and were willing to pay for it. Not now.
If we fail to rebuild our infrastructure this country is going to slide downhill into oblivion. Business does not thrive without infrastructure. They have to be able to ship what they produce. They have to have a healthy labor force. If we keep up the blame game and the insistence that we don't need to tax in order to spend, we are going the same way as the Roman Empire, which was defeated by its own greed. Everyone taking and no one giving. It doesn't work. Economic health is dependent on interdependence. We must all take care of the world in which we live or that world will soon be unable to take care of us.
I'm pretty sure we gave Obama $1,000,000,000,000 for shovel ready jobs (infrastructure). Nice try.
Here's where it went, you are now informed. Have a nice day.
The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:
1.Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2.SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3.Solyndra ($535 million)*
4.Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5.Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6.SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7.First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8.Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9.EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10.Amonix ($5.9 million)
11.Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12.Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13.A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14.Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15.Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16.Schneider Electric ($86 million)
17.Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
18.ECOtality ($126.2 million)
19.Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
20.Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
21.Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
22.Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
23.Range Fuels ($80 million)*
24.Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
25.Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
26.Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
27.GreenVolts ($500,000)
28.Vestas ($50 million)
29.LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
30.Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
31.Navistar ($39 million)
32.Satcon ($3 million)*
33.Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
34.Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)
*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.
Lars, when did you give Obama $1 trillion for shovel ready jobs?
Lars, your numbers add up to about $7.5 billion and not all companies are bankrupt. Where did the other $992.5 billion go?
It was actually $787 billion, my mistake. WE gave him that in February 2009. I believe he called it a stimulus package, you know, to get people back to work.
golfsleft, that's exactly what I'd like to know. I can tell you this, none of it was used to shore up those levees...
The 2009 stimulus was used to save the auto industry and the banks. Now you know where that money went. And by the way, that stimulus had nothing to do with the shovel ready jobs.
golfsleft, I'm not going to get into a peeing match with you. I'm sorry you have been misinformed these last few years. Here is a link detailing the stimulus:
In fact, it did. There were road construction projects, bridge rebuilding, etc. If you open your eyes, you will see many road improvements and repairs going on that have signs posted explaining that this is being paid for with stimulus funds. It has created a lot of jobs in construction, so it did what it was supposed to do.
As for subsidizing solar energy, the Chinese are heavily subsidizing research and development of green energy. They believe it to be the primary energy source of the future and they are into it bigtime. One of the reasons Solyndra failed was because the Chinese copied the technology, then subsidized it and built it with cheap Chinese labor. Solyndra was on the right track. If they weren't, the Chinese wouldn't be trying to eliminate us from the competitive marketplace.
We subsidize the oil industry, and a whole lot of other industries as well. Some of the industries that are so heavily supported by Republicans have also gone bankrupt. Sometimes it's incompetence and sometimes it's unfair competition. No one gets it right all the time.
Venture capitalism, as practiced by Romney, has a twenty to fifty percent fail rate. In Romney's case, he couldn't deal with the fail rate so he turned to vulture capitalism instead. That's when he started asset stripping and shipping companies to China. I don't particularly care for that kind of capitalism. It puts profit ahead of people and ahead of country. There's something really wrong with this picture.
Our thoughts and prayers goes out to all people who have lost loved ones and in needs. Also may God bless all those people who are out there helping everyone out there. I don't think Moonachie, Little Ferry and the surrounding areas have levees, its a mistake.
Luke 21:25
And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; THE SEA AND THE WAVES ROARING;
The "new jersey" out there:
a LIFE PRESERVER!
Chuck in Olathe wrote: "When the liberals can't find something real to disagree with they will make something up. Barry, a man with no character, morals or ethics (as proven by his abandonment of the ambassador and Navy Seals) is struggling to appear "presidential" while Romney shut down the requests for campaign donations in order to collect donations for the storm victims.Which of these two men shows leadership? Romney does - as well as showing the human compassion that Barry apparently lacks."
Chuck you conveniently left out Romney's primary debate remarks:
ROMNEY: "And those things we’ve got to stop doing, because we’re borrowing $1.6 trillion more this year than we’re taking in. We cannot…
KING: Including disaster relief, though?
ROMNEY: We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral..."
To see the video and Romney's passionate tone AGAINST disaster relief look and listen here:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/06/14/244973/mitt-romney-federal-disaster-relief-for-tornado-and-flood-victims-is-immoral-makes-no-sense-at-all/
Then, Einstein, tell us how much Romney is "showing the human compassion." In addition, try checking out the Budget Amendment Paul Ryan submitted that would hold up any disaster relief -for weeks to months- until Congress approved another area of government where the budget would be cut to pay for it.
"Plenty of haters out this morning. It's really easy to second guess people when you know nothing about them, their circumstances, or even if they had cause to be concerned." - underemployed
my thoughts exactly. Why are we here arguing about things and stirring the pot of unrest? We need to support EVERYONE on the NE Coast. Whether they were smart enough to evacuate, or even able to evacuate, is not the question WE (onlookers) should be asking. i think HOW CAN I HELP, (financially, Emotionally, etc.) is better suited. CANT WE ALL JUST GET ALONG. :) hope everyone has good day! POSITIVITY IS KEY!! (rant)
Well, let's see now...there is no money to bring our infrastructure up to date to safeguard folks from this sort of disaster like those in Moonachie, Little Ferry and the greater Hackensack area who just a first hand revelation as did the folks in Nashville a while back and several other municipalities around the country. But, there is ALWAYS enough money to go around the world pimping American democracy that nobody wants and if there isn't enough money, by God, we'll borrow it. Not too bright folks--especially when it escalates hostility toward us in the first place. Pedal democracy? Do it by example and let other leaders come to us. Put Romney in office, the infrastructure priorities, once again, will get kicked to the curb as we will, without a doubt, end up in another war. Romney's saber rattling rhetoric makes this very clear.
As for a few of the bad apples that took took a significant hit near the coast and the same who leveled condescending remarks at the folks in New Orleans, remember you people got of light. You were hit with a puny category 1 storm with a mild 10 -12 foot surge. The folks in the New Orleans - Gulfport area got slammed by a category 5 and a storm surge ranging from 18 - 30 feet. Be happy you got off the hook relatively easy.
And of for you climate change nay sayers who claim climate change is a hoax (like the disappearing polar ice) just remember that this storm that just "didn't happen" will be followed by several more that will be worse (won't happen) and cause far more damage (that there won't be any indication of whatsoever).
"Plenty of haters out this morning. It's really easy to second guess people when you know nothing about them, their circumstances, or even if they had cause to be concerned." - underemployed
my thoughts exactly. Why are we here arguing about things and stirring the pot of unrest? We need to support EVERYONE on the NE Coast. Whether they were smart enough to evacuate, or even able to evacuate, is not the question WE (onlookers) should be asking. i think HOW CAN I HELP, (financially, Emotionally, etc.) is better suited. CANT WE ALL JUST GET ALONG. :) hope everyone has good day! POSITIVITY IS KEY!! (rant)
Politics should be left out of this, people are hurting, no matter if you are a dem. or replub. these folks need our prayers and whatever other help we can give.
I'm not interested in blaming nor condeming. I'm in Fl. I know what its like to see a community wasted by storm. I've always been lucky in that I've never lost loved ones nor major personal property. I do know what its like to see your state, the places you like to go, homes of people you know severly damaged, and to be without power for more than a week. I wish those in the effected area strength and patience. Thank God for FEMA and a goverment that cares about its people's welfare. I hope you can recover quickly.
Wow. Where was all this sympathy for the people who were warned and chose not to leave during Katrina?
There is a reason I live in Arizona!
Because you just crossed the boarder.
This is ridiculous to think that any of our puny efforts will ever stop of even divert a tidal flood.
Yet every year, these fools keep wasting taxpayers 'emergency funding' to clean up their mess and put them back into harm's way until they are finally terminated by the ultimate forces of nature.
And even worse are the politicians who cater to their stupidity and pander to the public as serving the public good when they are purely doing the irresponsible.
'Disasters' are simply nature taking back what mankind has usurped. Give up, get out of the way and go to the highground!!
There is a reason people settle on water--it's freaking important to the infrastructure of society. New Orleans and New York/New Jersey are some of the biggest and most strategically important port cities in the country. Where do you expect all the crap you buy to come from? If you want to "give up" these areas, then you also have to be willing to give up everything they provide.
The people of the coastal area are supposed the first one to be evacuated, and they don't need to be told, for the path of the storm obviously covers them and it is on the weather report. They have to listen to the authority's saying.
Hope that they will listen next time.
I doubt these people were told to evacuate because they are miles from the coast.
My prayers and thoughts to all of our people over on the East Coast! And I encourage everyone who is reading this to donate to bonafied (sp) charities who are providing relief--even if you can only afford a few dollars. It all adds up! Check your favorite relief charity on Charity Navigator. And do your civic duty by being as civil prepared as you are able. Disaster can strike anywhere. Sometimes it is known that it is coming. Sometimes it strikes without any warning at all.
Why aren't these flood "VICTIMS" being held accountable & responsible for their BAD LIFE CHOICES of living in a KNOWN flood zone?
And you know this is a "KNOWN" flood zone how?
And God said, remember the power I have in one finger, yet you still pervert my works, my word the deaf don't hear, So here take this destruction and see that he is the only ONE God..This country deserving the destruction to come, the east coast, next the west coast, Las Vegas will burn in Hell. A great testimony to those who believe, listen and learn you generation of vipers. You have forsaken your God and this country has fallen to perverse ways, conforming to all kinds of sick and perverted ways. Well you get what you sow, so eat those waves, your homes taken away and millions will still just say,,, DAAAAAA whats up doc,,in their Me Myself and I Disney land mentality. Just one more testimony to me, and you will fall again, thank God for this testimony to me. Hell coming to your back door. Men of faith be strong as you witness your Gods power, his wrath on the wretched cities, there is more to come,,...Amen..
Funny, how God gives Las Vegas a bye.
Well, Chuck, we are living in the Age of Grace. But just because we are living in the Age of Grace doesn't mean that God will suspend the laws of physics for us. The destruction we are seeing has more to do with climate change. And there is a good chance that the climate change we are seeing is man-made. Even if it is not man made, we are still polluting this beautiful Earth that God gave us. There are natural consequences for that pollution, consequences that result in us humans hurting ourselves and the environment. But that doesn't mean that God is purposely bringing Hell to people. We are given the directive in the New Testament not to judge others lest we be judged, but instead to practice love and compassion on EVEN our enemies! Check out 1 Corinthians chapter 13, and put it into practice. Also Luke 6:27 - 38. Have you donated to any relief agency yet?
Difference between heaven and hell is only a matter of degrees (heavy sarcasm intended). In Heaven, the police are British, the soldiers are German and the cooks are French. In Hell, the police are German, the soldiers are French and the cooks are British.
If the government QUIT bailing these people out maybe they would MOVE to safer areas....LEAVE SANDY'S DAMAGE IN PLACE to remind the residents to GET THE HECK OUT!
That include the subway in NY too?
I would love to turn over tunnels and roads and subways and everything to pricvate enterprise, including firemen, police...would be funny for a while
That's ok, those dirty northeasterners needed a bath anyway.
Too soon?
I see Anthony Soprano, Jr. in the above picture left side of the boat
Christi and Obama worked to gether and Christi said he could not give a dam about the election.
Some persepctive.
Camille was a ferocious Category 5 hurricane when it hit Mississippi
on August 17, 1969. Camille's 190 mph sustained winds at landfall were the
highest winds ever recorded for a U.S. landfalling hurricane. Camille drove a
record storm surge of 22.6 feet to Pass Christian, Mississippi. On August 29,
2005, Hurricane
Katrina hit the same region of Mississippi coast, as a Category 3 hurricane
with 130 mph sustained winds. Yet Katrina's storm surge exceeded Camille's at
all locations, topping out at 27.8 feet at Pass Christian (Fritz et
al., 2008). How could a Category 3 hurricane's storm surge exceed that
of a Category 5?
Wallace -
Hurricanes are rated by windspeed alone. Tides, wind direction, moon-phase, barometric pressure - all effect the storm surge.
There have been rumblings about "re-categorizing" hurricanes to account for flooding, but I don't believe it is in the works just yet.
Camille would have flatted New York with a direct hit with 23 ft storm surge and 190 mph winds.
Even Katrina with a 28 ft storm surge , twice what this one did would have taken out all of manhatten.
Camille would have flatted New York with a direct hit with 23 ft storm surge and 190 mph winds.
Even Katrina with a 28 ft storm surge , twice what this one did would have taken out all of manhatten.
Obama did fine as well as Christie
Bush did not in Katrina though
The east coast of the US should have known better that a storm of this magnitude was going to happen. Year after year of false reports made people see no seriousness of this one. Caught off guard they were. Please pay attention next time a superstorm occurs.
And to think that this storm was only a CAT 1. Imagine if it was a CAT 2 or a CAT 3? Manhattan could have been completely destroyed.
Remember New Orleans/Gulfport got slammed with a cat 5 (Katrina) and a 30 ft storm surge. The damage sustained in NJ/NY is not a storm problem, it's a damned planning problem. Nick, Sandy was a puny cat 1 hurricane. You have this disaster because politicians are always trying to spend as little as they can get away with and hoping a major storm will never materialize. Now they are going to spend roughly 100x as much to fix the mess than they would if they built the infrastructure legitimately in the first place. These stupid imbeciles are killing this country from the inside out.
Keep Obama and give congress the boot. Get rid of them all!
I love it!!!
The storm is not even over and every comment is about how something is someone's fault.
Clearly, we are an enlightened society that deserves good fortune and shows the intelligence and unity to move forward as a leader in the world.