It sounds like a joke, but it is real: a man was filmed piloting a motorboat straight down a flooded street in Long Beach Township, New Jersey, and the video is spreading fast. The bizarre scene was triggered by an early fall nor'easter that hit on September 26 and 27, when heavy rain, powerful winds, and a full moon's high tides pushed seawater far past the shoreline and onto the roads of the Jersey Shore's barrier islands. Long Beach Island took some of the worst of it, with the Route 72 Causeway bridge closed in both directions and the island effectively cut off from the mainland. In Ship Bottom, at the base of the causeway, floodwaters completely inundated the area, and many roads were underwater and impassable. It's worth noting that the exact street and time of the boat video have not been independently confirmed.

Emergency crews had to get creative, with the Ocean County Sheriff's Office using a hovercraft and other vehicles to move through the flooded areas. Ship Bottom's emergency management coordinator described a stretch near Hotel LBI where the water reached about five feet, saying it looked like one unbroken sheet of bay water. Long Beach Township even suspended its island shuttle service from September 25 to 27, and New Jersey's governor had already declared a state of emergency across eight coastal counties. Relief finally arrived on Sunday, when the state Department of Transportation reopened Route 72 in both directions around 4 p.m. Even so, pockets of standing water are still sitting in low-lying coastal areas, and officials are warning drivers to stay alert, obey barricades, and never try to power through flooded streets.