10 Years Later: Remembering Superstorm Sandy In Newark

NEWARK, NJ — Crisis-level flooding. Power outages that nearly engulfed Newark. A prison escape. Election season chaos. These are some of the ways that one of the worst storms in New Jersey history left its largest city reeling.

On Oct. 29, Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey, wreaking havoc across the state, including Newark. Take a quick look back at how the storm battered the Brick City. EDITOR'S NOTE: This article contains previous reporting by multiple Patch staff members.

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FLOODS/STORM DAMAGE

The worst flooding was reported in low-lying areas of the East Ward around South Street and also in the South Ward around Frelinghuysen Avenue, city officials said.

Five feet of floodwaters made is nearly impossible to rescue several residents from their Ironbound homes. East Ward streets, including South Street and Raymond Boulevard, were flooded for most of the night before the water receded around midnight.

Enormous branches fell across the city, blocking roadways and snapping power lines. In the North Ward, a telephone poll appeared to have crashed into several Bloomfield Avenue stores.

An abandoned structure at 295 Grove St. also collapsed during the storm, officials said.

More than 100 people sought shelter at the John F. Kennedy Center on West Kinney Street, according to city officials. The center provided those in need with cots, food and a place for their pets in the mobile pet hotel outside the center.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker – who was mayor of Newark at the time – was among the many community members who pitched in for relief efforts.

• See related article: Booker Says 'Large Swaths' of Newark Still Without Electricity

POWER OUTAGES

The day after the storm, about 95 percent of residents in Newark were left without electricity, with vicious winds having ripped down scores of utility poles.

Though the power outages were spread across the city, the hardest hit area may have been the East Ward, some reports said, which suffered severe flooding in addition to loss of electricity.

Traffic lights throughout the city – including along South Orange Avenue, Bloomfield Avenue, Springfield Avenue, Clifton Avenue and Bergen Street – were knocked out in the storm, leaving local police officers directing traffic for days.

• See related article: Sandy Leaves All of Newark Without Power

Meanwhile, seasonal chilly temperatures left some residents struggling to stay warm, which presented its own problems. Booker said three people suffered carbon-monoxide poisoning after trying to heat their home on Meeker Avenue.

"People often use makeshift ways to keep their homes (warm)," he said. "That is a massive fire hazard."

The struggle continued for some Newark residents well into November. Many were still without basic services such as electric, heat and hot water – including Casa Mia, a six-story senior citizen building.

• See related article: Newark Seniors, Residents Still Suffering From Effects of Sandy

PRISON ESCAPE

When the power failed at Logan Hall, a halfway house in Newark, at least 15 inmates escaped – one of the largest mass escapes in the recent history of New Jersey’s corrections system at the time, The New York Times reported.

The Corrections Department and Community Education played down the violence and the escapes, The Times reported. “To characterize this as some sort of mass prison break is a reckless exaggeration in support of a false narrative,” a department spokesman said.

• See related article: Inmates Leave Logan Hall During Hurricane Sandy

VOTING

All across the state, election officials were left scrambling to come up with ways to make sure people could still vote as cleanup efforts continued. They included Essex County Clerk Chris Durkin, who tried to manage the chaos from a hotel in Newark while his family rode out the storm at a relative’s house in Morristown, Al Jazeera America reported.

In the wake of the storm, then-Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno issued a directive allowing displaced voters to vote by fax, email and through the internet – a controversial move that caught the eye of the Rutgers School of Law–Newark Constitutional Litigation Clinic, among others.

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