Irene Strikes the County

Welcome to "Around The County," a weekly column that highlights stories in Bergen County Patch communities. This week, most of the area's coverage focused on Irene, which brought heavy rains and wind causing a lot of damage. In other news, the Crossroads developer filed site plans to build a shopping center in Mahwah, a 74-year-old Franklin Lakes man died after being dragged across his driveway by his car and the Fort Lee superintendent announced his resignation. Check out our list of some of the top stories on Patch sites this week:

• Teaneck firefighters responded to through noon Tuesday, including fires, gas leaks and car crashes, according to the fire chief.
  
  
• Mahwah police and fire units .
  
  
• A Fair Lawn man inspecting his roof for storm-damage Tuesday.
  
  
• Residents who evacuated from Dunkerhook Road and Skylark Court in Paramus during Hurricane Irene returned to a dramatic scene. A trio of upturned trees lay across the road, leaving live wires splayed over the roadway like a spiderweb. The ground was littered with dead fish, killed by electrified water and left behind by a Saddle River tributary that flooded the neighborhood.
  
  
• Multiple vehicles from the Glen Rock Department of Public Works — dump trucks, a utility truck with a Morbark chipper attached, and a huge Case excavator — rolled out onto the asphalt at the snarled intersection of Maple and Ackerman avenues just before 3 p.m. on Monday and got to work , pulling down Verizon data lines and bowing at least two utility poles.
  
  
• A New Milford resident and discussed the damage from Irene.
  
  
• with construction lasting the next several months, according to Ridgewood officials.
  
  
• In Westwood, from the flooding and because of Irene.
  
  
• of how Fort Lee handled the storm.
  
  
• Mahwah residents were asked to conserve water as , Mahwah Police Chief James Batelli said.
  
  
• Marlene and Philip Artuso of Hasbrouck Heights were grateful that which would have likely taken out electricity to the entire neighborhood, causing flooding as most of the area homes have sub-pumps.
  
  
• Though many of the “West Ward” residents in Mahwah estimate they had “about 15 feet of water” inside their homes during Irene Sunday, they .
  
  
• A 74-year-old Franklin Lakes man , police said.
  
  
• The Crossroads Developers LLC, the company seeking to build a 600,000 square-foot shopping center at the intersection of Routes 17 and 287 in Mahwah, , according to the developer’s attorney Jim Jaworski.
  
  
• Fort Lee Superintendent of Schools Raymond Bandlow has announced that he has accepted a position in the Beacon City School District in Beacon, N.Y., a Dutchess County community about 55 miles north of New York City and about 90 miles south of Albany. , and that he will be starting his new job in Beacon on Nov. 1.

• The Mahwah town council approved a zoning ordinance, which repeals the three previously approved ordinances that would allow for a shopping center to be developed on the Crossroads property at the intersection of Routes 17 and 287 in Mahwah.