'A muddy mess': Boys & Girls Club of Lodi cleans up from yet another flood

Even as the threat of another storm loomed for Friday night, North Jersey residents, businesses and municipalities are still trying to recover from the Tuesday storm that dumped up to 4 inches of rain and brought devastating flooding to many neighborhoods.

In Lodi, numerous streets were closed, businesses were shut down, residents were evacuated from their homes, and others had to deal with the cleanup from flooded yards or basements.

The Boys & Girls Club of Lodi, whose property borders the Saddle River, is dealing with major damage from the storm. That's not an unfamiliar situation, said Joseph Licata, chief executive officer of the Boys & Girls Club of Lower Bergen County.

"It's like Groundhog Day. It's rinse and repeat. It's the same thing over and over again," said Licata.

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"Lodi floods, press and public officials come in, and then the water recedes, and nobody talks about it, and then it floods again," he said. "And it's not just us. We're one piece of a big problem that effects the whole county."

Flood doors, pumping system

Over the years, the sheer amount of flooding that Lodi and the Boys & Girls Club building has dealt with has prompted the organization to install flood mitigation measures throughout the building.

After Hurricane Irene in 2011, the organization had enough. It considered moving the club to a new location, but the cost was too much, so it installed flood doors and a pumping system in the basement consisting of seven main pumps and two backup pumps.

There is also a backup generator that can keep two pumps running in the case of a power outage.

Additionally, when a storm is coming, workers make sure to remove anything from the parking lot that could float away. The dumpsters are secured, since they have floated away before.

Regardless of those measures, the parking lot is a "muddy disaster," and the basement was filled with water, ruining the building's two pool filter pumps, which will need to be replaced. Licata ranked Tuesday's flooding among the seven worst.

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The club is also installing solar panels and some of the contractor's construction equipment was already staged in the parking lot and ready to go. In preparation for the storm, the contractor moved things that could float away, such as a port-a-potty, but did not think that the giant shipping container sitting in the lot would float away.

It did.

"I was shocked, I got a call, and somebody said, 'I think this thing is floating.' I was like 'are you kidding me,' " said Licata. "And then not even 10 minutes later I get another call that it was stuck under the bridge."

A crane had to pull the container out of the river and it was brought back to the contractor's facility. It plans to return it to the Boys & Girls Club parking lot after the upcoming weekend's storm and find a way to secure it in the event of another storm.

Dredging the Saddle River

While he appreciates the help that he and others have received for cleanup and repairs from state and local officials, Licata is fed up with the constant flooding events and is urging government officials to get involved and dredge the Saddle River.

"We have done as much as we can at this point to our building," he said. "We really need our government partners to step up, advocate, and dredge the river.

"Each time this comes about you're talking millions of dollars that get thrown into repairing things when you can throw dollars into dredging the river to solve the problem, or at least solve it to an extent where it maybe wouldn't have flooded during this last storm," he said.

Tom Koziol, who owns an apartment building on Main Street that was flooded so badly on Tuesday night that his tenants were forced to evacuate, agreed.

Koziol has owned the building for about 40 years and this flood is the seventh he has dealt with, pouring money and time into making repairs just for it to flood again. He said the river needs dredging.

"We go through this, and I try to speak to someone, nobody cares," said Koziol.

"There is a solution that exists," said Licata. "I think the time has to be now; this is not going to get better. Weather patterns are changing, we see it, I've seen it in my 15 years here that each year we have more of these floods happening.

"It's not just about us," he said. "There's homeowners and other businesses all up and down this river that get impacted each time we have an event like this."

River is silting up, can't hold as much runoff

With each flood, mud and other debris gets washed into the river, building up the bed and causing the river to lose depth. If you look downriver from the Boys & Girls Club parking lot you can see an island forming that didn't used to be there, Licata said.

If you drive alongside the river, you can see numerous downed trees and branches clogging up the waterway.

A family that has lived in the Lodi area for years, Licata says that his grandparents used to swim in the river decades ago, something that could never be done now with its depth of only a couple of feet.

"Help us to push the government to address the river," said Licata.

A nonprofit organization, the Boys & Girls Club aims to "enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens."

The building is home to before and after-school care, sports, aquatics, clubs, activities and more.

You can check out the club's website if you are interested in donating or volunteering.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Rain in Lodi NJ leaves Boys & Girls Club flooded