7 Rowan University students displaced after heavy rain floods home in Glassboro, New Jersey
A group of students at Rowan University are having a rough start to the school year after their home flooded during Thursday's storms.
Several feet of water came rushing into the bottom floor of the off-campus home in Glassboro, New Jersey. Seven sophomores moved in the day before for the fall semester, and they started scrambling when the door gave way, letting in a deluge of water.
"All the rooms down there were filled with like one to two feet of water immediately, so all the rugs, anything they had on their floors kind of got ruined," Ryan Henry said.
Henry said he was sitting on the couch upstairs Thursday afternoon when it started pouring in Glassboro. He says the water started rising in the outdoor stairwell, which put pressure on the back door.
"We look in our little back room and there's like a whole pool of water there … a little scary," he said.
"It was really chaotic; we tried to go into everyone's room and get all the electronics out and get everything off the floor," said James Didomenico, who also lives in the home.
Nearby streets also started flooding, and many yards and driveways were covered with water.
"I've lived here for over 30 years and I've never seen it that bad," Maria Cancel said.
CBS Philadelphia's NEXT Weather team says more than five inches of rain fell in parts of Gloucester County Thursday. In Mullica Hill, crews were making repairs Friday after part of 322 near Route 45 buckled and gave way. Several other roads remain blocked after trees and wires came down during what some described as unrelenting rain.
"The water was literally rushing down here, you could tell it had nowhere to go," said Tiffany Hemingway.
Back in Glassboro, a water line was visible several feet up the wall inside the students' home. Clothes and mattresses were left soaked, and all the young men had to leave until everything is cleaned up. It's not the way they were hoping to start the semester.
"It was our first day all being together in the house as well, it's just really unfortunate," Henry said.
