MERCHANTVILLE, N.J. (KYW Newsradio) — Record rain brought flood advisories across the Philly region Saturday and into Sunday, and some residents in South Jersey say they’re still pumping water out of their backyards.
Jim Fallon has lived on Glenwood Avenue in Merchantville since 1978. For as long as he’s lived on the street, heavy rains have brought flooding. That’s even after the township added a new pump on the street to direct more water to the nearby Cooper River.
“We got some rain in the basement today. It’s not too bad. You see newscasts, people have it up to their windows of their house, so we don’t really complain too much,” he said.
“If it’s a one-day really heavy rain, it’ll flood for a little bit, but the new pump picks up pretty well, but if it rains heavily for hours and hours and over the course of a couple days, then it backs up pretty well and it takes a little bit longer to subside.”
Saturday was the region’s wettest March day in more than a century, with about three inches of rain across the area. Fallon said it was the worst he’s seen in six months on the street.
The flooding prompted police to shut down Glenwood Avenue to be blocked off as standing water rose into the street and on people’s front yards and driveways. But neighbors had to intervene before the police got there.
“One of the neighbors parked his car in the middle of the street to stop traffic from coming through because it flies up into our lawns,” said Fallon, “so it gets pretty hairy.”
Fallon says the rain started to pool in his basement. To get the water out, he and his neighbors installed their own pumps to direct the water into the street drains.
“So that’s still running two hours after it went down. That’ll be running for another three hours.”
Still, he says, the new pump has made the flooding easier to handle.