Storm & Flood Damage Recovery in Carlstadt, NJ

More likely settlement, and water follows it. Fill placed over tidal marsh consolidates unevenly over decades, so different parts of a building settle at different rates and joints open at the slab, around openings, and where additions meet the original structure. Those openings then become the entry paths in the next storm. Addressing the water without recognizing the settlement usually means sealing a joint that is going to keep moving.

Because the ground beneath the fill is marsh, and marsh soils hold water rather than passing it along. Combined with a tidal river that removes the discharge head at high water and a basin with essentially no gradient, there is no mechanism to move water away quickly. Duration rather than depth causes most of the damage locally, which changes what can be saved after an event.

For groundwater it helps and it needs to be sized for continuous running. What a sump cannot do is lower a water table that is set by a tidal river and held up by marsh soils; it manages what arrives at the building rather than changing the conditions around it. Expecting more than that leads to burned-out pumps. Keeping mechanical equipment and anything of value off the lowest level does more here than any pump specification.