Community Corner

Flooding Woes Continue—This Time, on Fairfax Drive

One Cinnaminson woman took to the township committee meeting to get officials behind her efforts to deal with the Pennsauken Creek.

 

Shannon Arnold knew she moved into a flood zone when she bought her Cinnaminson home on Fairfax Drive. But after talking with neighbors, several assured her it never got that bad.

It’s now that bad.

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“It just seems to increasingly get worse and worse,” said Arnold.

Arnold brought some of her concerns to the township committee meeting earlier this week to get Cinnaminson officials behind her efforts for relief. Unfortunately, committee didn’t have many too answers for her.

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“I think the township needs to be more involved and they don’t seem to want to or care,” Arnold said.

That’s not the case, say some township officials. Cinnaminson’s administrator Frank Locantore said the township is very aware of the flooding issues in that—and other—areas of Cinnaminson but it’s “not an easy fix.”

“There are other agencies involved,” Locantore said Monday night—namely, the Department of Environmental Protection.

The problem is with the Pennsauken Creek that runs through the neighborhood. But the township has no jurisdiction over the creek; that’s state business.

The first major flooding event Arnold experienced was six months after she moved in.

“I just remember coming out one Sunday morning [to go] to work, and it’s completely dry out, but the neighbors are cleaning their flooded garages out,” she said.

Her car was flooded and there was water in her crawl space, but nothing serious, she said.

But ever since then, if there’s rainfall, Arnold parks around the corner from her own home

“I’m watching the tides,” she said. “I’m watching when there is a full moon.”

But she said the heavy rainfall now isn’t even a factor.

“Last weekend, there wasn’t much rainfall and the street still flooded,” she said.

A few days before Christmas last month, the water was so bad, she couldn’t leave her house for fear it would spill into her home. She had to call out of work.

“There was very minimal rain the night before,” Arnold said. “It wasn’t anything heavy. We (neighbors) were all basically stranded.”

She found out the township had nothing to do with the flooding issues but wanted to talk to official nevertheless to get them behind her and her neighbors in fighting the issue.

Arnold assumed the township would have the most pull in contacting the state on the Pennsauken Creek issues but Deputy Mayor Anthony Minniti told Arnold if she and her neighbors contacted the state, it could make more of an impact.

“I’m absolutely going to [do that],” Arnold said. “I have a petition already. I’m going to continue to get more signatures. I will contact the state or whatever is needed.”

The township will be behind her though, officials said. Arnold left them with her contact information.

“I will definitely be following up,” she said.

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