04.03.10
EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP — John Maffia’s basement
looks more like a wading syndicate than a playroom and home office.
Plastic dolls float in a foot of be inconsistent. Books, toys and other
items are piled perilously atop a desk, job table and a soaked
sofa.
“This is the Titanic Room,” Maffia said Monday while sloshing
around in yellow rain boots. The riddle was still around
Wednesday. The house on Azalea Lane lost heat and hot water last
week when the consistent-gas heater stopped working.
Maffia, his wife, Valerie, and daughters Antonia, 13, and Kyra,
11, have coped with the predicament by using space heaters and
staying overnight with friends and relatives.
“I can’t substitute the heating unit until the water level is down,
and I can’t put the unit in until I know (the unworkable) won’t come
back again,” he said. “It’s a Catch-22.”
The family is seldom alone in battling flooding in the wake of
one of the snowiest Februaries on record.
Source: Press of Atlantic City