Heavy rain shuts South Jersey highways, suspends some PATCO service

Heavy rain and flooding has closed several highways and caused a suspension on part of the high-speed PATCO line in South Jersey to start the Thursday morning commute.

New Jersey 101.5 Chief Meteorologist Dan Zarrow said radar estimates show 3 to 4 inches of rain fell since Wednesday afternoon along a swath from Salem to Gloucester to Camden to Burlington counties.

"Nearly stationary storms just kept dumping and dumping and dumping heavy rain over that area," Zarrow said. The storms finally moved away from the area early Thursday morning.

Most of New Jersey was under a Flash Flood Warning until 1 a.m. Friday, as rapidly rising flood waters could quickly cover highways and properties.

Route 206 in Southampton was closed after a flash flood in the Vincentown section of the Burlington County township after heavy rain caused the Rancocas Creek overflowed its banks along Lenape Trail. Video posted by ABC meteorologist Ginger Zee on her Twitter account showed flooded out yards

Several sections of Route 295 closed overnight and about a dozen drivers had to be rescued from their vehicles, according to tweets by Fox Philadelphia reporter Sabina Kuriakose. She posted pictures of cars stuck in high standing water on Route 295 and on Route 130 near the Collingswood Diner.

Route 295 was reopened to traffic after 7 a.m. with some lane restrictions in place. Routes 38 and 168 were also reopened

As of 7:50 a.m., the following roads were closed:

• I-295 northbound - Ramp to #29 (Route 30) CLOSED due to flooding
• Route 47 northbound - CLOSED between Broadway and Route 130 in Westville
• Route 70 east/westbound - CLOSED between Route 206 and Eayrestown in Southampton
• Route 73 north/southbound — CLOSED between Main Street and Stiles Avenue in Maple Shade due to flooding
• Route 130 northbound — CLOSED between New Broadway and Brooklawn Circle in Westville due to flooding.
• Route 30 east/west - CLOSED between Warwick Rd and I-295 in Magnolia due to flooding

PATCO service was suspended between Lindenwold and Broadway due to storm damage at several stations and on the tracks. It wasn't sure when service would be restored.

The agency posted pictures on its Twitter account showing a flooded out station and tracks. Another photo showed a hole in a rail bed.

Service on NJ Transit's RiverLine was suspended by high water between the Walter Rand Transportation Center and the Waterfront Entertainment Complex in Camden. Service was restored around 8 a.m.

More than 3,300 PSE+G customers in Burlington and Camden counties were without power early Thursday, concentrated in Moorestown and Barrington, according to the utility's outage map.

However, as of 7:50 a.m. most of the Burlington County outages had been restored with just over 1,000 customers still out in Camden County.