kwalker
Well-Known Member
Here's a look at what Woodstown got slammed with last weekend...
As you can see, we were pretty unprepared as far as the water goes. There's two lakes in town; East Lake and Memorial Lake. East Lake's dam had a hole put in it years ago because there wasn't much need to have a lake there anymore. It's the Salem River plugged up, then it travels about a mile down until it reaches Memorial Lake. East Lake suffered the worst from it I'd say. The water got underneath the roadbed and literally lifted it off the ground and revealed the original road from the 1920s. The water was over top of the guard rail as can be seen in some pictures (if they work out). The dam held up alright surprisingly. Memorial Lake was pretty fair as well being it repaired. They were planning on draining the lake a small bit before the storm but I guess it was too much work...so in turn the water just went wherever it wanted to. There's houses that had over four feet of water in the basements. Yikes.
As you can see, we were pretty unprepared as far as the water goes. There's two lakes in town; East Lake and Memorial Lake. East Lake's dam had a hole put in it years ago because there wasn't much need to have a lake there anymore. It's the Salem River plugged up, then it travels about a mile down until it reaches Memorial Lake. East Lake suffered the worst from it I'd say. The water got underneath the roadbed and literally lifted it off the ground and revealed the original road from the 1920s. The water was over top of the guard rail as can be seen in some pictures (if they work out). The dam held up alright surprisingly. Memorial Lake was pretty fair as well being it repaired. They were planning on draining the lake a small bit before the storm but I guess it was too much work...so in turn the water just went wherever it wanted to. There's houses that had over four feet of water in the basements. Yikes.
] Woodstown got 7 inches within 24 hours which was a huge problem with the old infrastructure around here. The way I see it is for ever inch of rain you get about a two foot rise in water. So in turn, we had a 14 foot rise in the river. You could only get out of town one way of the usual 4 or 5. The national guard was in securing a lot of areas especially around where the girl's car went in. I'm surprised they didn't even have a patrol car outside of the bridge watching over.
