May 1st, 2014 Flooding and Levy Pictures

I took a little drive this morning and snapped some pictures of the flooding.  This first picture is Shepherd Avenue in Middlesex, between Route 28 and Mountain Avenue.  It was a steady flow of water going across the road.

According to http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/crests.php?wfo=phi&gage=bdkn4, this was the seventh highest crest in recorded history at 34.65 feet and they never had to close the gate to South Bound Brook.  I call that an amazing triumph of engineering.

As you can see here, they did close the East street gate as a precaution.  Turns out they didn't have to.  Better safe than sorry.  The gate opened back up around 11:45 AM this morning.

I drove around behind my old West Main Street stomping grounds where we used to live.  You can see the levy holding the water back.  I remember during Hurricane Floyd looking out my backyard window at the flood waters over-topping those tracks. Today, I noticed for the first time that the levy is a number of feet higher than the freight railroad tracks.  I think that the levy would have been high enough to keep the Hurricane Floyd waters back.

Here is the new pumping station behind Jamie Fine Chemicals.  It was operating, pumping the water out of the collecting area by the Rock Machine Park and over the levy.

This interesting vehicle rode by.  I guess they were checking the tracks.

Another shot of the levy.  You can see it holding the water back on the left side.  The levy turns to the right and connects to the passenger train tracks along side Talmadge Avenue.

A shot of the freight train trestle from the levy behind West Main Street.

A shot of the passenger train bridge parallel to the raised bridge over Talmadge Avenue.  During a flood a few years ago, the water rose above that bridge and came into Bound Brook through those tracks.  This time around, the gate across the tracks is operational.  They did not need to close it this time around, because the waters did not rise enough.

Here, the Delware-Raritan Canal is overflowing into the Raritan river.

Overall, the Greek Brook Flood Control Project is an amazing feat of engineering.  There are multiple layers or protection which can be put into place, depending on the water levels.  However, that does not solve our town's antiquated sewer system.  Vosseller Avenue was closed due to some sewer issue.  I saw some water bubbling up out of the sewer.  One of these days, I'm sure that will be fixed, too.