Jersey Shore floods: Locals kayak through streets as nor'easter overwhelms highlands

Now we want to check in with our crews out at the Jersey Shore. Let's head south down there to Kelly Kennedy who's been tracking the conditions for us. Kelly, I feel like we've been with you through this journey from getting out there from the city this morning to having to move locations to find a safe area to go live. It does look like you are also getting some relief from the rain right now. Yeah, so thankfully, Francis, the rain has slowed down. That is the good news. However, the water and the flooding has not. We are still here in Highlands just over the bridge from Seabright. And if you look, we were standing before. You see that? I don't know what that is. It's some piece of debris. It's like a box that's floating. There's a bunch of stuff floating throughout the street right now. But we were standing right there. We had to come forward to some higher ground because the water just kept on rising. There are a couple of cars down there that are fully submerged on the block. Their alarms were going off for, I don't know, about an hour. It finally shut off. But really a mess out here. A lot of people I spoke to who live in this area tell me that it doesn't usually flood here. This is usually kind of the higher part. You can see there's a guy there trekking through the water. Earlier today, I wanted to show you some video we have where you can see a guy who actually kayaked through this water. He did not want to do an interview with us, but he was just, you know, I don't know, going for a kayak ride in the middle of the street. He acted like it was normal. Kind of shocking to see. But I guess that does happen here in this community. A lot of these people say, oh, it's not too bad. It's not as bad as Sandy. People keep bringing that up. They said, well, they haven't seen flooding this bad in a few years. It's just not as bad. It's not the worst they've seen. We also spoke with a couple of guys who work at the Lusty Lobster, which is just across the street. It's like a seafood supplier here. They're also seeing a lot of flooding over there. But they said they're still getting a bunch of calls from restaurants inland who want, you know, some seafood delivered. And they're trying to figure out if they're going to be able to open their doors because they don't want to miss out on that Saturday business. I also spoke with another guy who said he went out to get coffee at Starbucks. Now he doesn't know how he's going to make it home. Let's listen to those clips. About if we can get open. What do you think of seeing all this water? Hopefully later, low tide maybe. Do you think anyone will come out with all this water out here? I mean, our phones were ringing off the hook this morning. So we all the restaurants, all the restaurants are looking for their stuff, too. But they're all inland. So they're not experienced in this part. This is pretty bad. We never used to get the water all the way up to here. It's a high tide. That's what it is. And the full moon. That's what's doing it. Are you worried just seeing how quickly this water is rising? Yeah, it's pretty common for this town. But today was pretty impressive and how quick this came up. You know, it wasn't this high an hour and a half ago and high tide passed like about two hours ago. So pretty impressive. You probably wish you would have stayed home and made your coffee now, huh? Maybe. More fun being out here. But we'll see. Hopefully, hopefully my garage doesn't have too much water in it. Kelly, can you hear us? We just heard from the people you interviewed. It sounds like everyone, for the most part, is taking this in stride, riding this out together. I know you mentioned the man in his kayak. You saw a woman in flip flops. And then the guy we just saw live in shorts carrying the suitcase up above his head. The big, I think, story of this storm also is just the duration of it all. Right. We are all playing the long game, trying to ride it out together, even if something is not as intense. I know it can be frustrating for folks because especially it's a weekend in a popular area like Jersey Shore or some of these coastal communities. These businesses that are very dependent on visitors or locals coming out for the weekend impacted. So we appreciate you bringing us all that perspective from the people out there. We're going to give you a chance to maybe get in the car and dry off because I know the rain keeps coming in and out. And you've been through a lot this morning. So we really appreciate it, all right. Thank you, Frances. We'll talk to you later. Talk to you later. Before we go to a break, I just want to give you an update on the latest in terms of state of emergencies, power outages and other impacts. A state of emergency is in effect for the city, Long Island and Westchester, eight counties in Jersey also under a state of emergency, including Monmouth County.