just as hurricane season heats up a

major flood protection projects been

completed near the chronically flooding

confluence of the Raritan and millstone

rivers senior correspondent Brenda

Flanagan has this effort to manage the

peril and promise the challenge of

climate change about eight inches of

rain from Hurricane Irene sent rivers

over their banks in bridgewater power

failed briefly at the American water

treatment plant source of water for a

million New Jersey residents Bob Shafer

remembers hunkering down inside seven

years ago there was some some very tense

tense moments there and we had our you

know we had our our flood our prior

flood gates closed and we had employees

in here there's a flood wall around the

plant and in 2011 it topped off right

here now these are flood gates and as

Irene came through right on the other

side a river of water was raging and

rising plant operator

Oleg Costin described the scene during

Hurricane Irene he came within one inch

of coming over the existing wall that we

had there literally one inch there's

actually a picture we call it the money

shot where you can there's a ruler up

against the top of the wall and it was

within one inch of coming over the top

American water needed to better protect

its vulnerable assets and 18 months ago

launched a 37 million dollar project to

harden its perimeter Homeland Security's

declared this plant Tier one critical

infrastructure this is an incredibly

critical facility that serves

approximately one in nine residents in

the state directly if and when this

facility ever goes down it impacts a

billion dollars worth of economic

activity over a billion dollars today a

ribbon-cutting celebrated completion of

several flood protection upgrades

the utility built new flood walls

protected its power plant with a berm

and pump system and double the height of

its perimeter wall defenses 248 feet

above flood stage for a catastrophic

event it's a foreign 500 year frequency

flood so that's based on the hydraulic

analysis of the basin here at the

watershed it's a trend climatologists

note 8 of the top 10 Jersey floods have

occurred since 1996 including Hurricane

Floyd which completely flooded the plant

back then it had no flood walls the

Coast Guard came and actually evacuated

us out and I was the last person to

leave these are extreme events so you

need to be patient as a climatologist to

be able to tribute them to any one thing

but they do fit a pattern of climate

change a more extreme environment

American water had considered even

stronger defenses for a thousand-year

flood but the cost proved prohibitive

they're hoping this is enough for now

it's a real big sigh of relief believe

me because if the water comes over the

top of this I think I'll retire in

Bridgewater

I'm Brenda Flanagan NJTV news

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