FEMA assesses damage in New Jersey following flash flooding

<p>FEMA representatives were in several parts of New Jersey Thursday to assess the damage left behind by flash flooding earlier this month.</p>

News 12 Staff

Aug 23, 2018, 10:16 PM

Updated 2,304 days ago

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FEMA representatives were in several parts of New Jersey Thursday to assess the damage left behind by flash flooding earlier this month.
The representatives started their tour in Little Falls, one of the areas worst hit by the flooding. Town residents have been cleaning up their homes nonstop for over a week. But they say that there is still too much debris.
“It’s miserable. We go help other countries, and our own people they didn’t get help,” says flood victim Mohamed Mohamed.
Mohamed says that he has been ordered to vacate his home because there is too much damage.
“We lost everything…It’s garbage now,” he says.
The FEMA crews were out doing preliminary assessments of the damage to confirm how many houses were impacted. Several feet of water washed through the town when the Peckman River overflowed due to heavy rain.
Fran Richards says that her family had to be rescued by boat.
"They took us on a boat, me and my husband and my daughter until the end of the block.  Then because the water was [very high], they put us on a crane, lifted up the crane, which was very scary and then drove us,” she says.
Little Falls officials held a meeting Wednesday evening to go over some of the things residents need to know about dealing with the flooding aftermath. But they said that FEMA aid cannot be guaranteed.
"Me and my husband, from Day 1, we really didn't have hope on insurance.  We can't count on anybody but ourselves,” Richards says.
Mohamed says that he received FEMA aide once before in the 1990s and he says that it was before his property was in a designated flood zone. He says that he is pleading with FEMA for help.
“We don’t know where to go. I have no place to stay,” he says.
FEMA crews will also be touring other parts of Passaic County, as well as Bergen, Essex, Monmouth and Ocean counties. These are the counties that were put under a state of emergency following the flood.