file photo by Boyd Loving
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Ridgewood Board of Education member HyunJu Kwak posted the highlights of the Floodplain Education Seminar led by Mr. Christopher Rutishauser and Mr. Jovan Mehandzic from the Village’s Dept of Public Works and Engineering department in a Facebook post . Here is Ms. Kwak’s commentary :
The Floodplain Education Seminar led by Mr. Christopher Rutishauser and Mr. Jovan Mehandzic from the Village’s Dept of Public Works and Engineering department was highly informative.
(I attended as a concerned resident only and not in any capacity related to the Board of Education.)
Highlights include:
– Ridgewood has a Community Rating System (CRS) of 6 out of 10, which translates into 20% discount for flood insurance
– the Village performs preventive maintenance: dredging ponds, desilting and de-snagging waterways such as Saddle River and Ho-Ho-Kus Brook and cleaning the catch basins. Estimated cost of desilting and desanding those 2 waterways: $400,000 to $700,000
– an updated FEMA flood insurance map for Ridgewood is from 2019, which increased the flood hazard area from the 2005 map to cover around 700 homes. The map is available online to compare the 2005 vs 2019 maps. Google: “Flood Map Changes Viewer”
Flood insurance is required if your home is in the designated floodplain. Village is pressing FEMA to reverse an inaccurate designation for certain homes north of North Maple Avenue (and a resident is suing FEMA as well). Flood insurance bills are expected to rise as insurers can raise rates a maximum 18%. Insurers appear to be gradually eliminating the grandfathered discounts, which would push the average $3,000 bill closer to $8,000 annually for homes in the floodplain.
– Village relies on alerts from flood gages at Saddle River and at Ho-Ho-Kus Brook, and plan accordingly by using door dams, moving cars and equipment if the water level exceeds 4 1/2 gage height in feet (which is when water would hit the curb). The Village has to receive a Dept of Environmental Protection (DEP) permit to do any work on the waterways.
Residents can also sign up for text alerts at:
Saddle River flood gage:
Hohokus Brook flood gage:
– Residents can only put sandbags closely around their homes to prevent flooding; sandbags on the edges of the property are not allowed as the water would then be pushed to other neighboring homes. Low flood walls around the homes, sump pumps with backup power, and internal drains are other ways to prevent house flooding
– 1 house was condemned post-Ida, 2 homes condemned after the Floyd storm. The Village Council will discuss the Blue Acres program in closed session on December 1st. Blue Acres is a New Jersey site acquisition program, and is a strictly volunteer program only for sellers in flood-prone areas. Note: if a property is acquired via Blue Acres flood buyback program, the tax revenue for that home will be eliminated as the site becomes an open space.
– The Village engineer supported the installation of Steven’s turf field because it added hundreds of gallons of flood storage under the field. Any adjustments to the pedestrian walkway at Steven’s Field at the high school will require DEP approval. Long-anticipated repairs for the East Ridgewood Ave bridge by the high school is still 4-5 years away.
Like spittin’ in the wind….water finds it’s own level.
Spending $400-700k for desnagging and desanding? Over what time period? Decades? I’ve seen dredging and cleaning the HHK brook once in the last ten years. This money may be spent after floods. There is little to no proactive work done.
Much of the flooding from Ida came as a result of whole trees and other debris piling up against bridges, especially the low pedestrian bridge on high school property. The problem would have been greatly mitigated had the town actually done what Rutishauser and Mehandzic said they did