Homeowner’s yard completely underwater; residents frustrated with wet weather

KYW

By Marcella Baietto, Scott Jacobson

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    DELANCO, New Jersey (KYW) — The constant storms are leaving residents in Burlington County frustrated as they saw more wet weather Saturday. This comes after county officials said the Delaware River rose to a record high of 11.9 feet earlier this week.

Kathleen Heintz has been pumping out water from her backyard right along the Delaware River for the past three days.

“The scariest part is seeing the water rise knowing I can’t do anything about it until the tide goes out again,” she said.

She’s been living in Delanco Township for two decades and said the unprecedented flooding has taken over her yard and filled her crawl space with nearly nine inches of water.

On Saturday, Heintz watched from her home as the tide rose.

The water started to move over the bank at around 2:30 p.m., 30 minutes later the flooding moved up to the driveway until finally at high tide, the Delaware River became one with Heintz’s yard.

“I’ve been here for 20 years, this has happened maybe five times in those 20 years,” Heintz said. “Now it’s happened three times this week.”

It’s not only the flooding that’s worrying homeowners, all of the debris that has washed up on their properties is also causing problems.

“The amount of just random stuff [that] has washed up onto people’s lawns here like this New York Yankees flip flop, the Lord knows where that came from,” Matt Bartlett said.

Bartlett, Delanco Township’s mayor, said the recent storms have led the Riverside-Delanco Bridge to close due to flooding.

“There’s been numerous closures over the last few days which causes all the cars to go out the long way out to Route 130 and there’s traffic jams out there,” he said.

Traffic conditions were later reported back to normal on the Riverside-Delanco Bridge, the Burlington County Bridge Commission Police Department said.

As logs and debris continue to wash up on her property, Heintz hopes she has seen the worst of the flooding.

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