Cumberland County to get disaster aid for storm preceding hurricane

While Hurricane Irene severely affected almost all of New Jersey, the devastating effects of the unnamed storm two weeks before, on the weekend of Aug. 13-14, were concentrated in Cumberland County and, to some extent, adjacent parts of Salem and Gloucester Counties.

"No one had ever seen anything like it," said Cumberland County Freeholder Director Bill Whelan.

At one point, Whelan said, 61 roads in the primarily rural county were damaged, and 24 of those were closed to traffic. There were reports of up to 12 inches of rain in some parts of the county, while official totals were an amazing-enough seven inches. "Needless to say, it was horrific."

More than a month on, five roads in the county are still closed, at least in part, and damage to infrastructure is estimated as high as $20 million - this in a county were the annual tax receipts are only in the middle $80 millions.

Until Friday, Whelan fretted about "a double whammy": Although all of New Jersey's 21 counties had been declared disaster areas because of Hurricane Irene, thus qualifying for federal aid, damage left by the earlier storm had not drawn that declaration.

Then on Friday, efforts by U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, whose district includes Cumberland County, and the state Office of Emergency Management, bore fruit, as President Obama approved disaster aid for the storm.

"While much attention has been paid to the impact of Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee on South Jersey, substantial destruction had already been inflicted by these mid-August storms. The subsequent weather merely compounded the significant problems these counties were dealing with," LoBiondo said in a statement.

Still, the logistical and repair issues remain, with Gloucester and Salem Counties, where most of the damage is from Irene, faring only slightly better.

Gloucester County Engineer Vincent Voltaggio said his office had to inspect more than 80 bridges and several hundred culverts after both storms. The most vital route interrupted, he said, was the heavily used U.S. 322 bridge over a dammed pond in Mullica Hill, which had to be shored up and reinspected, closing it for four days after Irene.

Porchtown Road near Lake Iona in Franklin Township was reopened and then closed again, Voltaggio said, after a bypass pipe underneath the road breached and caused a massive sinkhole.

In Salem County, 13 roadways or bridges were closed, at least for inspections, in the wake of one or the other of the storms, said Robin Weinstein of the county Office of Emergency Management.

"It's like a laundry list you never want to have," said Weinstein, noting that major county bridges or intersections may not be back to full use until mid-October, including the Harrison Station Bridge on County Route 605 leading into Gloucester County (sinkhole); Oldman's Trestle Bridge (washout); the Kings Highway bridge just south of U.S. 40 (buckled road), and Woodstown-Alloway Road (sinkhole).

"These are major roads for people in a rural county. Sometimes you have to go way out of your normal traffic pattern - it's quite inconvenient."

The Salem County freeholders have approved a $3 million emergency bond note, Weinstein said, but he fears that the total bill will be more in the $15 million range.

"Certainly individuals - farmers especially - have their own problems with the flooding, and the closed roads add even more because of more time and more transportation costs," he said. "But these are infrastructure costs that everyone will share in."

FEMA will generally approve disaster-area infrastructure costs either for loans or outright reimbursements, said Cumberland County's Whelan, but usually not for the full amount of the repair.

Repairs have to be made first, since the money is only for reimbursement, not for projections.

Cumberland County's freeholder board gave preliminary approval Tuesday for a $7.1 million emergency bond for repairs that will go to a public hearing on Oct. 18.

It is not something done without pain, Whelan said.

"We're going to have to abandon or put off lots of other things," he said, most importantly a new juvenile justice facility, budgeted this year for $5.2 million, and other road projects for $1.9 million.

He said just about every penny designated for anything extra in the county has to go toward the Aug. 14 storm repairs.

"We just don't have the ratables that a place like, say, Camden County has to afford something like this," said Whelan, who said that the entire tax base for Cumberland County is $8.5 billion, which generated $83 million in tax receipts last year.