Water Damage Restoration in Elmwood Park, NJ
Of every town on this stretch of the Passaic, this is the one the gauge names first — and it names it before the river is officially in flood. Extraction, drying, mold remediation and the rebuild — one crew, start to finish.
The gauge that covers this stretch of the Passaic sits downstream at Dundee Dam, on the Clifton bank, and it publishes ten flood-impact statements: ten readings, each with a plain-language description of what is under water at that height. Read from the top down they work through Paterson, Garfield and the industrial ground along the highways. Read from the bottom up, they start here.
The two lowest statements name no town at all — one describes the low end of a street closest to the river, the other does the same for another street. The third from the bottom, at 4.5 feet, is the first rung on the whole ladder that names a municipality, and the municipality is this one: "River Drive in Elmwood Park begins to flood."
Four and a half feet is the Weather Service's minor flood stage for this gauge — the lowest category there is. So on the only public document that describes this river street by street, the first named place to go under is in Elmwood Park, and it goes under at the moment the river is first officially in flood at all. That is the thing worth knowing here, and it is not in the borough's claim file, which is small: 99 National Flood Insurance Program claims on record from 1978 to 2023, 80 of them closed with a payment, $2.2 million paid.
What we do
- Water extraction and structural drying — our own crews, not a dispatch network
- Mold remediation — remediation of what the water left behind
- Sewage and flood cleanup — water that came up through a sewer or across the ground
- Rebuild after the damage — the same company puts the building back
- All 21 New Jersey counties — the shop and the crews are in Garfield, Bergen County
- Paid by insurance or by you — we document the loss and the work; we do not handle the claim
First named, at the lowest category there is
Four of the ten statements name this borough, and they are spread from the very bottom of the scale to the very top. Taken in order they read like a rising tide line drawn across the borough's western edge.
At 4.5 feet, the whole statement is a single sentence: "River Drive in Elmwood Park begins to flood." At 6 feet: "River Road at River Drive in Elmwood Park begins to flood. Riverside Place in Garfield begins to flood as does Somerset Street. Market Street in Elmwood Park begins to flood." At 7 feet: "Business' between Route 46 and 80 in Elmwood Park are flooded and sustain first floor damage. Market Street is subject to closures. Residential properties surrounding Pulaski Park are flooded. Many homes between Passaic Street and Van Winkler in Garfield are flooded." And at 9 feet, the top of the ladder, one of its sentences puts the industrial ground between the two highways under several feet of water.
Two and a half feet separate the first sentence from the point at which businesses on the highway strip are taking first-floor damage. That is the practical span for this borough, and it begins on the lowest rung of this gauge that names any municipality at all.
For contrast, and because it makes the point better than any argument: the two rungs below 4.5 feet read "The lower end of Bergen Street, closest to the river, begins to flood." and "The lower end of East-Holsman Street, closest ot the river, begins to flood." No town, no highway, nothing to act on unless you happen to live on one of those two streets. The transposed "ot" is the Weather Service's own and is left as published, because a quotation that has been quietly tidied is no longer a quotation.
None of the above is a statement about any particular address, including one on River Drive. It says that somebody has reported water on that road at about that reading. What it is genuinely good for is setting a number to watch: if you are on the borough's river side, 4.5 feet is the reading at which this gauge's own text says your end of town begins, and that is much earlier than a flood warning for the reach as a whole.
Two different floods share this borough
Read the gauge and read the claim file and they describe different events, which is unusual and worth untangling.
The gauge describes a commercial and industrial flood. Its Elmwood Park sentences are about River Drive, Market Street, the businesses between Route 46 and Route 80 taking first-floor damage, and an industrial district submerged. That is water at grade, in buildings with no residential basement underneath and a great deal of stock on the floor.
The claim file describes something else. Of the 99 claims on record, 75 carry a basement code and 73 of those 75 are on a building with a basement, an enclosure or a subgrade crawlspace — 45 of them finished. Two are recorded with no below-grade space at all. So while the gauge's Elmwood Park text is about first floors on the highway strip, the insured losses are overwhelmingly houses with water in a finished cellar.
The other number that fits that picture is contents. $574,000 of the $2.19 million paid here — better than a quarter — went on contents rather than on the building, which is a high share and is what a finished below-grade room produces: furniture, appliances, stored belongings, the things that are down there precisely because there was room.
It also explains why the largest single event on this borough's file is not the one you would expect. Hurricane Floyd accounts for 17 claims here and Hurricane Irene 14, with a further 13 filed under FEMA's unnamed label. The worst year is 2011 with 19. This is not a borough with one defining flood; it is a borough with a long, moderate, repeating one.
| Measure | Elmwood Park | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Flood claims on record, 1978 to 2023 | 99 | OpenFEMA NfipClaims v3, rated community 340500 |
| Rank among Bergen communities with claims | 30th of 69 | Counted on the same field, statewide |
| Closed with a payment | 80 | Rows where either coverage paid anything |
| Total paid | About $2.19 million | Buildings $1.62m; contents $0.57m; compliance nil |
| Share of that paid on contents | 26.2% | A high share, and what a finished cellar produces |
| Largest single event | Hurricane Floyd, 17 claims | Irene follows at 14, FEMA's unnamed label at 13 |
| Worst year on record | 2011, with 19 claims | 1999 next at 18, then 1984 at 13 and 2021 at 8 |
| Lowest gauge rung naming any town | 4.5 ft — and the town is this one | The two rungs below it name streets only |
| Statements naming this borough | 4 of 10 | At 4.5, 6, 7 and 9 feet |
| Claims carrying a basement code | 75 of 99 | Left blank on the other 24 rows |
| Of those, on a finished basement | 45 | 26 unfinished, 2 subgrade crawlspace, 2 none |
| Properties bought, raised or floodproofed | None | No Elmwood Park row in FEMA's file at all |
| Community Rating System class | None | Nothing held, so no premium discount is earned here |
| Housing units | 7,765 | Census table B25034, 2020-2024 |
| Built before 1980 | 6,084 (78.4%) | From lines 007-011; 78.4% here against 73.8% countywide |
| Built in 1939 or earlier | 861 (11.1%) | Also table B25034; the equivalent county share is 19.3% |
Ninety-nine claims is a small file and nothing here is offered as a rate or a probability — the basement counts are printed rather than turned into percentages for that reason. FEMA's claims file records insured buildings only, so a borough with a small file may simply be a borough where fewer buildings carry a flood policy rather than one where less flooding happens. That mitigation row rests on three separate queries of FEMA's file — the borough's ZIP, its name, and the whole of Bergen County — and not one of them produced a row.
No class, no buyouts, and a newer housing stock
This borough holds no Community Rating System class, so no property owner here earns the federal premium discount that scheme gives; and FEMA's record of buildings bought out, raised or floodproofed contains no Elmwood Park property at all, under any of three ways of asking. Nothing structural has been done and nothing on the paperwork side is being earned.
The one thing that does work in the borough's favour is the age of the buildings. 78.4 percent of the 7,765 housing units here predate 1980, which is high, but only 11.1 percent predate 1940, against 19.3 percent across Bergen County. The defining vintage is postwar: poured foundations rather than stone or rubble, slabs poured with the walls rather than dropped in later, and mechanical equipment in a purpose-built utility corner rather than wherever it would fit. That is the stock behind the postwar garden courts, and what a soaking does to the openings in it is a separate job with its own answers.
That matters more than it sounds. A poured wall sheds water rather than holding it in its joints, so it dries on a schedule you can predict and a meter reading taken on it means something. It does not make the room dry itself, and it does not help at all with a finished wall built against it — but the structure underneath is cooperating rather than fighting, which is not true a few miles south.
Where the age does bite is the same everywhere: pre-1978 paint and flooring laid up to 1980 both carry federal obligations that an emergency shortens rather than removes, and in a borough where four buildings in five predate 1980 the safe default is that they apply. What each regime actually requires and where the emergency exception stops does not vary by municipality and is set out on the statewide water page rather than repeated here.
What the work is at this end of the river
Two jobs, because the gauge and the claim file describe two buildings.
In a house with a finished cellar, the slow part is the wall. Water wicks up behind the base trim into the bottom of the drywall and then into the stud bay, and the insulation in that bay holds it; the wall reads dry to the hand and to a surface meter while the cavity behind it is not. How far up the material comes off is decided with the trim already removed and a meter in the cavity. The floor is the other half: carpet and pad over a slab is straightforward, but plank over an underlayment traps water between two layers that both resist drying, and where the finish went over sleepers there is a cavity underneath that has to be opened rather than hoped about. Everything mechanical is judged on its own; a furnace, water heater, panel or air handler that has been submerged is replaced rather than dried and switched back on.
In a commercial or light-industrial space on the highway strip, the building is usually the easy part and the contents are not. A slab with no cavity under it and block or steel above dries relatively predictably. What takes the time is racking and stock, the wall base where drywall meets slab, and anything with a cavity built against the structure — a stud partition, a cold-room panel, a run of casework. And the classification of the water decides how much of it leaves the building: water that has crossed a highway and an industrial yard before it reached the door is a different question from water that came up through a floor, and that determination is made by inspecting the water and the building rather than by reading the forecast. Ask for it in writing before anything is demolished.
The last thing is common to both and specific to this borough. If the gauge's own text says your end of town begins to flood at the lowest category on the scale, then what goes back in after a flood is a decision rather than a restoration. How high absorbent material starts, what the lower wall is made of, whether the mechanical equipment or the stock can live off the floor: all of it is far cheaper to settle while the wall is open, which is why it is worth putting on the table at the estimate.
- The cavity behind a finished wall stays wet long after the paint on it reads dry.
- In a postwar poured foundation the structure dries predictably; the finishes built against it do not.
- Whether the water is contaminated is a determination somebody makes by inspection, not from the forecast.
Common questions
The Dundee Dam gauge is only at minor flood stage. Is there anything for me to do yet?
If you are on the river side of this borough, yes — minor flood stage is exactly where this gauge starts describing Elmwood Park. Its statement at 4.5 feet, the bottom of the minor category, reports that River Drive begins to flood, and that is the lowest rung on the whole ladder that names a municipality at all. By 6 feet the text has added River Road and Market Street, and by 7 it has businesses on the highway strip taking first-floor damage. So for this end of town the useful trigger is the minor category rather than a flood warning for the reach. Two limits: the statements describe named roads and a named industrial district rather than any particular address, and a street that does not appear in them has not been declared safe — it has only never been reported on.
Sources
- FEMA, OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims (v3), Elmwood Park borough rows (rated community 340500) — retrieved
- FEMA, OpenFEMA data dictionary, NfipClaims cause-of-damage and basement code lists — retrieved
- NOAA National Water Prediction Service, Passaic River at Clifton (Dundee Dam) (DDCN4): flood categories and all ten impact statements — retrieved
- FEMA, NFIP Community Status Book, the New Jersey communities holding no Community Rating System class — retrieved
- FEMA, Hazard Mitigation Assistance Mitigated Properties (v4), queried by ZIP, by city name and across Bergen County — retrieved
- US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020-2024 5-year, table B25034, Elmwood Park borough — retrieved
Water in the building?
Tell us what happened and what you can see. Pick “Water Damage” and we will come back to you about extraction, drying and what the rebuild involves.