NEW JERSEY — The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission on Friday reissued its account of the record-setting Delaware River flood of 1955, ahead of the 70th anniversary of the disaster that reshaped communities and crossings along the river.
“The most devastating flood of the Delaware River, ever recorded, occurred on August 19 and 20, 1955, presenting many new and challenging problems for the Commission and its Administrative and Engineering Staffs,” the Commission wrote in its 1955 annual report.
The United States Weather Bureau at the time attributed the flood to the back-to-back impacts of hurricanes Connie and Diane. “The warm moist air mass that had covered this area for days was penetrated by Hurricane ‘Diane,’ which weakened, as its low pressure area moved rapidly from Northern Virginia to Cape Cod. An effect was to force the warm air higher, where it cooled quickly and was unable to hold its moisture. The ground was already drenched from Hurricane ‘Connie’ and there was no place for water to go except in run-offs in tributary creeks of the Delaware and other rivers,” the report said…