Cranbury Begins Clean-Up Efforts

The township is in cleanup mode, but some areas are facing roadway and bridge damage, according to Township officials.

The Lake Bridge over Brainerd Lake is closed because of concerns over potential structural damage, said Jay Taylor, Cranbury Township committee member and Office of Emergency Management liaison to the police.

“We are concerned that the flooding eroded the soil under the bridge,” Taylor said. “The engineers from the county will be coming out within the next few days to inspect the bridge to make sure the roadway and bridge are fine.”

There was significant damage done to the Hightstown-Cranbury Station Road Bridge, near Brickyard Road, according to Cranbury Public Works Manager Jerry Thorne. The blacktop was torn up and washed away by flooding waters caused by Hurricane Irene. The Hightstown-Cranbury Station Road Bridge connects the township to East Windsor Township.

There is also flooding on some of the major roadways in Cranbury, according to Thorne and Taylor. Old Trenton Road, Ancil Davison Road, John White Road, Peddie Road and Old Cranbury Road all remain flooded and impassible, with detours in place.

Chief Rickey Varga said that people in five homes were evacuated during the storms but there were no injuries.

“There were no injuries reported related to the storm, but there were a couple of squad calls for people having difficulty breathing, but everything turned out okay,” Varga said.

There were scattered power outages throughout the day yesterday, according to Varga, but nothing widespread. 

“There were a couple of residential power outages, but everything seems to be fine now. A couple of branches came down but no mass power outages in town.”

Businesses remain open downtown on North and South Main streets where flooding has subsided, Taylor said. A large tree fell down on part of Main Street, which will be dismantled and chipped away by Cranbury Public Works. 

Taylor said that the township will move its cleanup day up from October to the weekend of Sept. 17 in an effort to handle debris.

According to Thorne, there were approximately 10 homes that had significant basement flooding.

“It was the worst flooding I’ve seen in the 22 years that I have worked here,” Thorne said.

Varga said that he is pleased with the preparation and handling of the Hurricane Irene response.

“The fortunate thing is that the storm came on a Saturday and Sunday and we had time to prepare,” Varga said. “A lot of people heeded the warnings, were prepared, and made it easy for us to deal with it and gave us time to recover. If it happened during the week there would have been more people out on the road.”