The Dogs? The Inventory? The Water Bed? Flooded Residents Cope

WAYNE, N.J. April 19 — The worst moment in the past five days for William Borger came at the end of the boat ride that took him from dry land to his house on North Road in the Hoffman Grove section. He needed his blood pressure medicine from the house, where the basement was entirely flooded and the first floor had 13 inches of water. But he needed Gunner and Magnum, his German shepherds, more.

John Miller and his son Tom in Wayne, N.J., where five feet of water had covered their new boiler.

William Borger and his shepherds, Gunner and Magnum.

“When we pulled the boat up to the house, I didn’t hear them,” he said, his eyes filling up recalling how he missed their usual baying and barking. The last time he had seen Magnum, on Monday morning, he had been bleeding around his eyes after rubbing them raw against the sofa, possibly from irritation from the flood water.

Then he heard Magnum, and he stopped worrying, he said, knowing Gunner was “too bullheaded” to get sick.

“This is my family, and you know what? I can’t lose them,” he said, as he led the two toward his parked car on Meadow Road on Thursday afternoon.

With this waterlogged township of 54,000 in Passaic County trying to recover from a punishing northeaster over the weekend and flood waters from the Passaic and Pompton Rivers, residents gave accounts of loss, resigned to waiting several more days before they could set foot in their basements again without waders.

Around New Jersey, there were still more than 1,000 residents living in shelters while Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey as well as Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York awaited word on whether the two states would be declared federal disaster areas. That would enable them to receive aid to clean up and to help residents driven from their homes.

Inspectors from the Federal Emergency Management Agency roamed New York, New Jersey and Connecticut on Thursday assessing the damage, though it was not always easy because sections of highway remained flooded.

For Mr. Borger, the aid will not come soon enough. He said the boat that dropped him off at his house on Monday night did not pick him up again as promised, so he slept on his soggy couch with the dogs and no heat.

“It was tight, but we made it,” he said.

He called town officials three times by cellphone, he said — his electricity was dead — but they explained to him that they had to rescue humans before animals, so he waited. On Tuesday morning he tried to get a pair of dry pants, then remembered he had rearranged his bureau and the pants were now in the bottom drawer, under water.

That day, Mr. Borger said, a neighbor in a small plastic boat rescued him but could not take the dogs. And so he spent Wednesday trying to find a ride out for Gunner and Magnum.

Late Thursday morning, two young people in a boat helped him rescue the pair. He bent over Magnum, who sniffed him. “You wouldn’t leave me, would you?” he said. “You’re my good boy.”

In the flood-prone Hoffman Grove section, more than 30 neighbors have recently taken buyouts from the township rather than endure another flood. But he said that for him, the nearly 0,000 that was offered to a neighbor would not be enough for him. So he plans to clean up and stay. “We got a nightmare,” he said, ticking off washer, dryer, refrigerator, electrical outlets, carpets and floors — all ruined. “This one was definitely devastating.”

On Sunday afternoon, David Chapman, 43, who owns Stanley Taylor Stationers, off Route 23 here, moved mailing labels, printer cartridges, toner and other office supplies he sells about three and a half feet off the floor of his basement storage room.

When he came to work Monday morning, the water was only 10 inches high, and he felt lucky.

On Tuesday morning, the water reached the doorknob, and although he figured he had lost some inventory, he said he was relieved because at least the rain had stopped.

But by Wednesday, the water was lapping at the landing of the stairs to the basement, and he realized too late that he should have emptied the 1,500-square-foot room. He estimates he lost as much as ,000 in stock.

“We won’t know until we start to pull everything out,” Mr. Chapman said.

And although he said he lost a lot of merchandise in 2005, he lamented on Thursday that “this is the worst ever,” as he headed toward the basement, where cardboard boxes had been submerged under about six feet of water.

A pump was slowly belching water out of the basement and into the parking lot. He batted at a mosquito hovering over the water.

“It’s horrific,” Mr. Chapman said. “If I’d have known Sunday afternoon, I would have brought everything up here. I moved the business from New York City after 9/11, and came here thinking I’d get a new start. It’s unbelievable.”

Next door to Mr. Chapman’s office, on Mountain View Boulevard, the Miller family was wondering what to do with the waterlogged water bed in their basement. John Miller, who does not work because of a bad back, surveyed his flooded backyard, the discarded yellow insulation, the ruined silver Honda that had worked last week, the old swing set that barely cleared the water.

“Downstairs is a total loss,” he said.

One of his sons, Tom, 17, wore plastic bags over his feet to keep them dry in their boots. His pajama pants were wet almost to the knees. His 16-year-old daughter, Ashley, wore slippers and pajamas. Mr. Miller, 48, wore camouflage hip boots, but they had not been tall enough to keep him dry in his basement, where five feet of water covered the family’s new boiler, installed after the flood in 2005.

The water heater was also ruined, as were a stereo and rugs.

Mr. Miller said he had asked local officials to clean out the clogged storm drain in his backyard before the flood, but it was never done.

“Today we’re just cleaning up, hoping for the best that we won’t get any more rain,” he said. “I’ve had enough. With this one, I’m done. I’m going to move up north.”