The Empty Apartment in Downtown New Brunswick

How Did Hurricane Irene Flush Away the First Week of College

At about 12 PM in the middle of the night, there were sounds of fire and police alarms at Plaza Square Apartments in Downtown New Brunswick. While most people received a flooding alarm, in the WeChat Group of Chinese students who live there, everyone did not give it a second thought and was still talking about getting a ride to school together the next day. But the rainstorm outside their window would become a disaster that would flood them for the entire week.

The next morning around 7 a.m., the street already looked like a deep red river. This was followed by a power and water outage. Someone in the room heard sounds that were like explosions. The normally bright apartment hallways now like scenes from a horror cruise. Only the safety exit light is on. The river was coming up fast at this point. With nearly two-thirds of the streets flooded, the apartment's office issued an evacuation email notice at 8:30 am.

“I thought it was just a problem with our room. Since the middle of last night, our home has been leaking water all over the place and it's like we live in the middle of the ocean. We waited until daylight of the next day thinking we could get someone to repair it. But now the entire building is flooded, which is absolutely worse than pipe leaking,” said Ricky Luo, a Plaza Square Apartment resident, and a sophomore at Rutgers University.

At around 9 a.m., all the occupants from nearly 400 units evacuated from the apartment building. In front of them was a very worrying picture: the river had flooded the entrance to Plaza Square and Richmond Street, and there was only one pedestrian passage above the street to escape the building.

Another concern was soon realized, and that was the garage. One resident went downstairs to check the situation in the garage and things were not that bad at that time. But since the garage was in the basement of the apartment building, which was built on a slope next to the Raritan River, with the water level going up the garage soon was soaked in the flood, and there is only a little time for people to realized and move their car. Since all the cables were underground, the apartment needed to evacuate everyone and not return until all safety hazards were addressed.

No one was ready for this short notice of emergency evacuation. Someone's pet was still trapped in the house, someone had not packed their essentials when they went downstairs, and someone was in school in the morning, so they had no way to go home... And after learning from the fire department that the river was expected to rise again in the afternoon, everyone's mood on the first day of school was no longer one of excitement but of despair.

Chinese student residents, which is about one-fourth of all the residents, were discussing the situation in their WeChat Group. One girl fainted on her way down the stairs due to physical exhaustion. While she was being picked up by the ambulance, she was still worried about her cat that was still in her room and asked her neighbors to help her pick up and take care of her cat.

The garage was completely ruined at about 10 a.m. The garage was lit only by a red backup light, a symbol of disaster, and all the cars parked in the underground garage were soaked. The cars were essentially ruined by the water. This will be very upsetting news for many of the apartment residents who are still students. As far as they know, the apartment will not pay for the damage caused by their lack of notice, except for the owner's insurance.

The water level peaked around 2 p.m. and the entire street in front of the apartment was completely submerged. Residents tried to contact the apartment office, and the phone was no longer working. Most of the residents were sent to shelters, some went to hotels recommended by the office in emails, and some stayed at friends' houses. What was once an exquisite luxury apartment now looked like a haunted house.

A week later, the apartment finally sent out an email informing the residents that all safety hazards had been removed and everyone could finally go home. After the good news, there was the cold reality. Most of the cars in the garage were wrecked, and those without insurance would be responsible for their own damage. As the river also flooded the first floor of the apartment building, a strong fishy smell lingered in the first-floor hallway and the units on the side near the river.

The residents of the apartments, especially the students at the nearby schools, had a very frightening first week of school. Among the Chinese student residents in the apartment, half of them were freshmen and sophomores and new to this country. This terrible and sudden situation gave them a difficult time adapting to this area. It was also every Chinese student’s first week coming to campus after one year of Covid quarantine.

This catastrophe is not untraceable. According to the State of the Climate Report-New Jersey 2021, released by Rutgers University, environmental climate change is causing worldwide temperature and sea level rise, as well as an increase in rainfall. The annual precipitation of New Jersey was increasing at a rate of 45-49 inches/yr. from 1971 to 2020. New Jersey's mid-Atlantic region is one of the fastest warming regions in the nation, and with increased rainfall, New Jersey will be vulnerable to flooding, as in the case of Hurricane Irene. Similar disasters due to environmental climate change are still occurring throughout the United States and globally. On September 1, 2021, Hurricane Ida affected the Caribbean Area, the Gulf Coast of the United States (mostly Louisiana), the East Coast of the United States (mostly the Northeastern United States), and Atlantic Canada. For the Northeast U.S. that was affected, estimated flood damage from Ida totaled between $16 billion and $24 billion.