Another Day, another flood: Washout #7 at 25 Hewitt Road
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
West Amwell, NJ
August 27, 2026
More flash flooding alerts went out today, and while vicious storm cells passed through Trenton and North East into central and northern NJ, West Amwell was largely spared.
Except the North Western part of that storm just clipped us. We had another downpour for about 15-20 minutes as a result. Above is a screen capture of the storm radar at the time. Hewitt Road is located at the blue markers on the map. You can't see it here but storm was moving almost perfectly from the south west towards the north east, so it's effectively diagonal movement on this picture. We really did just experience the outer edge here, and only for a brief time.
Predictably, 25 Hewitt Flooded again. But this time, the southern culvert pipe was overwhelmed too, and we ended up flooding at both the southern end and the northern end simultaneously.
Here's what I saw as I walked up my driveway just as the storm was starting to abate. Our drainage ditch, which is served by only one of two culvert pipes under Hewitt Road, was flooded about as bad as it ever gets. The storm waters went all the way to our neighbor's fence. Thankfully, the amateur mitigation measures I put in place kept the water in the ditch and out of our garage and house.
Walking further up to the top of the driveway, we can see the culvert pipe is literally at capacity. It is filled to the brim and can't physically carry any more water. Mind you, this was after only a brief 15-20 minute downpour.
When I got to Hewitt Road proper, I was confronted with a drainage ditch completely overwhelmed and overflowing into the road. Our culvert pipe's capacity was saturated, and water was pouring out of the ditch over Hewitt Road and also continuing down to the South. This part of Hewitt has never flooded like this.
Regular viewers will know what comes next. I hop the drainage ditch and check out the silt fences from the side. This time it wasn't so much a hop as a slog, as I had to wade through about 2 1/2 feet of water to get to the other side.
What you can see is the super silt fence bulging in many locations, and about 10-15 yards away the water had topped the super silt entirely and was flowing over it. That means the water was about 3 feet deep at that point.
Of course the regular silt fences were completely inadequate. Again.
The next part shows the totally saturated drainage ditch, with the culvert pipe not even visible, and water pouring into the roadway.
Next up I focus on the failed super silt portion where water is pouring over it. I was confronted by a surprise there - the super silt wasn't just overwhelmed, but a hole had been ripped in the super silt fabric itself, with a little jet of water spouting out into the ditch.
Moving onto the middle driveway, we see the familar sight of water planing over Hewitt Road, and the corner super silt fence failing yet again. Also, like the other southern part of the Super Silt, holes were ripped in the super silt fabric and leaks were springing out in multiple places.
The Northern corner fences failed of course too, with water pooling on the opposite side of the road. This is from a 15-20 minute downpour. Imagine what will happen if we have a sustained 3-4 hour storm?
About an hour after the storm had finished, I circumnavigated the property again on the outside perimeter. It was mostly the same disaster it's been, but I had some new documented mud flows I hadn't seen before.
As we noted at the top of the article, the State got hit hard in many areas today, but West Amwell wasn't one of them. This storm should have been a nothing-burger for us, and indeed that's what it was for the rest of the Township.
But 25 Hewitt is special. And not in a good way.
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