Flashback: Hurricane Floyd

In case you weren’t in Millburn or Short Hills 10 years ago for Hurricane Floyd and are not really aware of what can happen during a tropical storm or hurricane, we thought we'd share some pictures taken Sept. 16, 1999, the day Floyd struck.

Lynne Ranieri of the  helped us out, tracking down a couple of photos from the collection of of  that show what looks like raging rivers running through downtown.

Mario DeMarco, co-owner of Basilico, watched the water rushing toward him in the restaurant that evening, and, he said, it rose so fast that he, his employees and a family of five who were there for dinner were trapped inside with rising water.

"We got saved by the fire department with a cherrypicker bucket - they had to take us out through the upstairs apartment," he said. "But first they had to bust a hole in the wall so we could get to the stairs."

According to reports, rain pounded the area with eight inches falling in 25 hours. With the ground saturated and ponds in the reservation and both branches of the Rahway River overflowing, there was a  and also in the South Mountain neighborhood as well.

Within minutes, downtown Millburn was under a few feet of water, which broke through storefront windows and flooded  and Sono restaurants during dinner.

About 500 homes in Millburn experienced flooding and lots of trees fell because of the ground saturation.

Federal relief funds helped the township cope with $2 million in damages.

"Since then we're better prepared," Town Manager Tim Gordon told Patch in 2009.

After Floyd, flood walls were built in the South Mountain area in a joint venture with Essex County, he said. The wall runs along the East Branch of the Rahway River from the Maplewood border to Gilbert Place.

There is also improved drainage in the South Mountain area, he said. There has not been any flooding in that area of town, which is more prone to flooding than downtown, along the West Branch of the Rahway River, since Hurricane Floyd.

At the time of landfall, Floyd was a Category 2 hurricane with maximum winds of 104 mph that came ashore in North Carolina and continued to accelerate north-northeast after landfall. Its center passed over extreme eastern North Carolina and over Norfolk, Virginia. Floyd then weakened to a tropical storm and moved swiftly up the coast to New Jersey.

DeMarco is glad the town made improvements to flood control, but after what he went through, he said, he won't take Irene lightly.

"I will play it by ear," he said. "If the radio says don't go out, we won't open. You have to think about your employees lives and your life. During Floyd, we had just opened. We didn't really know anything about storms like that.

"Now you can see the forecast and you know how tragic it can be," he said.