Factory Workers Rescued From Floodwaters in a Bucket: Video

As rising floodwaters stranded hundreds of factory workers in New Jersey,  fire crews improvised, ferrying them to safety in the bucket of a bulldozer.

Video footage shows the front loader carrying nine people at a time through several feet of water in Fairview, New Jersey, following torrential rain on Sept. 25.

Fire crews  supervised a variety of vehicles, including a boat and a military surplus truck that were recruited to rescue the 216 people, trapped after the nearby creek burst its banks.

“We tried to get out of the building but the water was too high, we couldn’t go anywhere,” evacuee Jairo Castano told CBS New York.  “The river is over the limit and there was nothing we could do but wait for the fire department and get out of there as soon as possible.”

Battalion Chief David Brierty of the Ridgefield Park Fire Department told WABC that various factors combined at the same time.

“It was high tide, we had rain a couple of days ago. The water was already at peak,” he said. “This rain came in so fast and so hard it came up real, real quick and nobody had a chance to get out of it.”

The torrential rain caused flooding across parts of the New York area and particularly in New Jersey.

A flash flood warning was issued in four New Jersey counties, in the Bronx, and Westchester County in New York, and in Fairfield County in Connecticut.

All across the tri-state area, people were rescued from vehicles caught in flash floods.

In New York City some stations were flooded, disrupting services.

According to local media reports, no one was injured in the floods.