By KAYLA J. MARSH
Staff Writer
RUMSON — A grant from the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs has funded the development of software that is helping borough officials pinpoint neighborhoods at risk of flooding and other damage days before storm events strike.
The Borough of Rumson is the first Post-Sandy Planning Assistance Grant recipient to successfully employ Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software for storm-resiliency planning.
“This particular grant was a direct response to damages sustained from Sandy and funding sources derived from the federal government for planning and preventative measures,” Borough Engineer David Marks said in an April 13 interview.
“This is really the first of its kind here in New Jersey, and I believe Rumson is probably one of the first municipalities to utilize the funds in this manner.”
The Post-Sandy Planning Assistance Grant Program assists municipalities and counties damaged during Sandy in developing and implementing plans designed to help them become more resilient in the event of future severe weather events.
The GIS software forecasts at least 48 hours in advance of storm events, allowing officials to know areas of the borough most likely to be affected — which houses might need to be evacuated, which sanitary sewer pump stations could potentially flood or lose power and would need standby generators, where to position large storm doors to deflect water flows to protect critical facilities and even where vehicles could safely be parked away from flood waters.
“The GIS mapping allows us to do what we never could before and allows us to access maps from FEMA, maps from the National Weather Service, maps from the county, state police maps … we can incorporate and bring all those maps into a program and we can identify which houses might be impacted by a storm or by some other event like a parade, a road paving job, a sewer backup,” Borough Administrator Thomas Rogers said in an April 13 interview.
“We can very quickly understand in an electronic format how this is all going to happen rather than look at a series of maps and try to take a guess whose houses are going to get impacted and whose are not.”
The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs awarded the borough $294,000 in Post-Sandy Planning Grants, of which the borough used $50,000 to develop the GIS software.
Rogers said the GIS software has already assisted the borough and residents, being used when Hurricane Joaquin formed in October 2015 and when Winter Storm Jonas formed in January, and allowed officials to take measures to mitigate the impact the storms would have before they made landfall.
“Winter Storm Jonas hit, and we were able to plan and we were able to evaluate the different areas in town we were going to have flooding in during the snowstorm because we had both flooding and snow at the same time, and we were able to take some preventative measures to assure the safety of our residents and do it in a much more timely fashion,” Rogers said.
“The federal government and the state have identified Winter Storm Jonas as a recognized storm so we’re actually eligible to be reimbursed for some of those costs for some of the work that we did at a 75 percent federal match.
“Having the GIS software makes us much more prepared, and it makes things much easier when we have all the mapping and all the details electronically … and it is great we have already used the money already to benefit the residents.”
