Politics & Government

Woodbridge Flood Victim Fights Back with Website

Monique Coleman isn't just sitting around in her Heidelberg Avenue home, waiting for the flood waters to rise again


In January, Monique Coleman went to a Woodbridge council meeting to ask for help with continual flooding issues in her Heidelberg Avenue neighborhood that reached a crescendo after Hurricane Sandy.

Not much came from asking for tax relief, home buyouts, and the creation of a flood advisory board, nor from presenting a petition to the council, and few township residents learned anything new after a FEMA meeting in January, four months after the hurricane.

Coleman took matters into her own hands and started a website, Life in the Woodbridge Flood Zone (otherwise known as woodbridgefloodzone.com) to chronicle what life is like on Heidelberg Avenue.

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The site isn't just for that section off Rahway Avenue; anyone who lives in a flood zone in the township, including in Port Reading, Sewaren, and other areas, is encouraged to join in the discussion.

The rising water isn't just a disaster after a historic storm like Hurricane Sandy - but after an inch of rain makes the Woodbridge River swell up over its scrawny banks, rising tides invade the homes built in the area.

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Coleman is documenting with words, links, and pictures what happens in her neighborhood. A recent storm that most people in Woodbridge already forgot caused flooding again in that section of town.

The township has already applied for Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, which would provide money to help alleviate flooding, and for money to elevate homes in affected areas, but it's not enough.

Coleman is encouraging owners of flood-prone homes to sign up for Blue Acres, a state program to purchase homes where the water problem is unmanageable.

According to a recent article Coleman posted, there's a sizeable interest in the Blue Acres program in flood-hit Sayreville. In Woodbridge, though, only two Blue Acres applications were filed.

"There are definitely more than two households in Woodbridge interested in buy-outs. Why hasn’t Blue Acres received only two applications from Woodbridge?  The program does not force people to sell their homes at the price being offered- everything is voluntary.  For dozens of the most flood-prone residents, there is absolutely nothing to lose by completing the one-page Blue Acres application," Coleman wrote on her site.

Anyone interested in contributing to the site or signing up for updates is encouraged to do so.

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