Coastal Flood — Eastern Bergen, New Jersey

2012-10-29 to 2012-10-30 · Eastern Bergen, New Jersey

Event narrative

Communities along the Hackensack River experienced two successive tidal cycles with at least moderate coastal flooding. The peak of this surge occurred Monday Night as Sandy made landfall in Southern New Jersey, with widespread moderate to areas of major coastal flooding along the Hackensack River.

Peak storm tides surpassed all previously documented high water marks, including the October 31, 1991 and December 11, 1992 nor'easters and the recorded peak surge from Hurricane Irene in 2011.

The most widespread damage occurred in the towns of Moonachie, Little Ferry, and Carlstadt, which were inundated with 4 to 5 feet of water as the surge up the Hackensack River Monday Night over topped the protective levees. This affected about 2000 residents in this area with approximately 200 residents having to be rescued from their homes. In addition, Teterboro airport was inundated with a few feet of water across most of the airport.

Wider weather episode

Tropical Storm Sandy formed in the Caribbean Sea on October 22. After drifting slowly southwest on October 23, Sandy turned to the north and intensified to a hurricane on October 24, just before making landfall in Jamaica. Hurricane Sandy continued to the north and intensified to a strong category two hurricane before making landfall again in Cuba shortly after Midnight EDT on the 25th. Hurricane Sandy emerged on the other side of Cuba during the morning of the 25th and proceeded to drift northwest as a category one or two hurricane as it moved through the Bahamas on the 25th and 26th. Overnight on the 26th, Hurricane Sandy (Category 1) started to move toward the north northeast, a motion that continued into the evening of the 28th. From there, Sandy's motion became driven by two factors. An anomalously strong blocking ridge over the Canadian Maritimes prevented Sandy from escaping to the east. Simultaneously, an approaching and deepening extratropical trough was about to capture Sandy. The combination of the two, turned Sandy to the north overnight on the 28th and then to the northwest on the 29th.

As Sandy continued to move northwest and interact with the mid latitude trough, its interaction continued to make it less tropical, but did not weaken it much. Sandy continued to make a harder turn to the left (west) and made landfall in Atlantic County as a post tropical storm in Brigantine City just north of Atlantic City at 7:30 p.m. EDT on the 29th. The estimated minimum central pressure was 945 millibars. The lowest recorded central pressure was 945.6 millibars at the Atlantic City Marina at 7:34 p.m. EDT.

Record breaking high tides and wave action was combined with sustained winds of 40 to 60 mph and wind gusts of 70 to 80 mph.

These extreme conditions resulted in at least 12 deaths across Northeast NJ and widespread property damage. The New Jersey State Governor estimated property damage at 29.4 billion dollars for the State.

Emergency managers recommended mandatory evacuations of people living along the coasts and rivers of mainly Union, Essex, and Hudson Counties. Widespread significant power outages of more than 1 million lasted up to 2 weeks.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 421664. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.