Hoboken remains under water

HOBOKEN, N.J. — National Guard troops sought Wednesday to rescue thousands of residents still trapped by sewage-laced flood waters in this city on the Hudson River, as local officials pleaded for volunteers to help.

A significant part of Hoboken remained under several feet of water after most of the low-lying land on the west side was engulfed by hurricane Sandy.

When the storm surge hit Monday night, the Hudson overcame the seawall at the north and south ends of the city, in a devastating westward torrent that made an island of the slightly higher, eastern half of the city.

Hoboken, a city of 50,000, is directly across the river from Manhattan, and many of its residents work there.

After Mayor Dawn Zimmer appealed for aid Tuesday, saying as many as 20,000 people could be stuck in their homes, the first National Guard trucks arrived just before midnight. Overnight, they responded to emergency messages to locate people and transport them to dry ground.

On Wednesday, the trucks travelled down streets that were still passable on the west side, responding to people who waved from windows for help. On the city’s Facebook page, officials called on residents in need to listen for the trucks’ approach.

City officials have not reported any fatalities in Hoboken so far. Among the first to be rescued during the night were two babies, one 5 days old and another 3 weeks old. By midday Wednesday, the trucks at the unloading point by City Hall were bringing older people, including several in wheelchairs, and many families with babies and small children.

Robyn Pecarsky, who was eight months’ pregnant, was helped down from the back of a truck with her two children, who are 5 and 8.

“We saw the National Guard and I sent my husband to tell them he had to get his pregnant wife out,” Pecarsky said.

National Guard officials said they brought 2,000 emergency meals and were prepared to distribute them.

“This is flooding like we’ve never seen in Hoboken,” Zimmer said. “It filled the city like a bathtub.”

Interviewed in the basement of City Hall, where rescue officials in a makeshift operations centre were down to one working phone line Tuesday, the mayor said the city had only a single pump station on the south end of town to drain its streets and, eventually, its basements. At its peak performance, that station can pump out 75 million gallons a day, she said — but that still meant days, not hours, before the city could begin drying out.