N.J. father of 2 drowned in Ida, trying to clear storm drain in neighborhood he loved – NJ.com

People who knew Patrick A. Jeffrey say he was a dedicated member of several overlapping communities that made up his full life before it was cut short by Hurricane Ida.

First and foremost was his family in Maplewood: his wife and the love of his life, Beth; their daughter, Quinn, and son, Colin. There were his parents and the sister and two brothers he grew up with in Tenafly. His Catholic church congregation was an extended family.

And another tight knit community all its own was his Maple Terrace neighborhood, where Jeffrey, 55, drew his last breath trying to clear debris from the entrance to a culvert, or storm water tunnel, between his house and the one next door on that rainy Wednesday, Sept. 1, in an effort to minimize flooding of both properties. (edited)

Members of those and other communities Jeffrey belonged to are now mourning the loss of the loving husband and adoring father, banking executive, tennis player, and rock ‘n roll fan, who was among at least 30 people in New Jersey whose deaths were attributed to Ida, the state’s deadliest storm since Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

“When I heard it, I just fell to my knees, ‘Oh, Patrick,’” said Sister Sandy DeMasi of the Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church in the Short Hills section of Millburn Township, where the Jeffreys were parishioners.

“He loved his community. He really loved Maplewood. He had a great comradery in his neighborhood, they did a lot together,” added DeMasi, who was one of about 300 mourners who attended a memorial service for Jeffrey at St. Rose of Lima on Sept. 10, before his funeral the next day and burial at Fairview Cemetery in Westfield. “Talking to people, it wasn’t out of the ordinary that he would go out and clear that drain.”

DeMasi had known Jeffrey since he joined the congregation in 2008. All four — Patrick, his wife, Beth, their 13-year-old daughter, Quinn, and son, Colin, 12 — all attended mass every Sunday. After Quinn’s birth and baptism at the church, Patrick Jeffrey was baptized on the following Easter Sunday, a customary date for Catholics baptized as adults, DeMasi said.

“He was a wonderful man, loved his family. When Beth was pregnant with Quinn, he was so excited it was beyond beyond. He saw everything as a gift,” DeMasi said. “Handsome, full of life, showed up, and just great.”

Maplewood’s deputy mayor, Dean Dafis, lives across the street from the Jeffreys on Maple Terrace, and has known the family since moving onto the block six years ago.

“We are devastated by his loss,” Dafis said of the close-knit community of Maple Terrace neighbors.

Jeffrey lived about three blocks southeast of South Mountain Reservation, an expansive Essex County park that rises above residential neighborhoods in Maplewood, South Orange, Millburn and Livingston. Residents of Maple Terrace said flooding was common whenever it rained heavily, with water rushing down the mountain joining runoff from the streets, driveways and roofs below, though rarely with the force or speed of Ida’s inundation.

Neighbors and police say that Jeffrey, a vice president at US Bank in New York, was outside at about 9 p.m. on the Wednesday night of the storm, when he was overcome by the floodwaters while trying to clear debris blocking the entrance to the culvert. It’s a storm water tunnel about three feet in diameter that runs below the street, fed by one of the narrow drainage canals that cut through the neighborhood.

Despite their cut-stone lining, over decades the canals have narrowed to just a few feet wide in places and become overgrown, some with trees and bushes sprouting from them. And neighbors say the open mouths of the culverts are often blocked by tree limbs, branches and other storm debris.

Jeffrey’s body was found a little after 7 a.m. the next morning around the corner on Ridgewood Road.

Neighbors praised members of the Maplewood Police Department for putting themselves in harms way to search for Jeffrey that night. Dafis, whose own property was flooded, recalled joining other residents in the search.

“There we were in drenching rain at 2 a.m., searching for Pat, opening man holes and looking in,” said Dafis.

Until a few years ago, the Jeffreys’ next-door neighbors on the west side of their house, where the drainage canal and culvert ran between the two properties, were an elderly couple, and then only the widow after her husband passed away. So Jeffrey had taken it upon himself to clear the mouth of the culvert whenever it rained, and he kept doing it even after the widow died and a younger family moved in.

“So, it was a selfless act, helping the elderly couple that used to live there,” said Davis, who has a similar culvert opening at the back of his property that also gets blocked by debris from the overgrown canal that feeds it. “It was something we all did to prevent flooding in our basements.”

Beyond Maple Terrace, other communities Jeffrey was a part of included his son’s flag football team, which he coached, and his daughter’s field hockey and softball teams, which he cheered wildly, according to an obituary provided by the Jacob Holle Funeral Home in the Short Hills section of Millburn.

Jeffrey was a lifelong athlete himself, a member of his high school football and tennis teams, and he continued to play tennis, along with golf, as an adult. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Rochester, where he was a fraternity brother at Psi Upsilon, and he remained friends on Facebook and otherwise with fellow alumni. He earned a master’s degree from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona, before launching a career in finance.

Prior to joining US Bank in 2011, Jeffrey’s work life included 13 years as a director with the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, where he was working when he met his wife, Beth, in Hoboken, according to his obituary.

Away from work, music was another part of his life, and he loved listing to The Rolling Stones and The Who, as well as introducing his adolescent children to the bands’ music.

In addition to his wife and children, Jeffrey is survived by his parents, David and Hope Jeffrey of South Dartmouth, Massachusetts; his brothers Joel and Silas, and his sister, Zoe; plus many other extended family members.

“He was passionate about his family and kids. ‘Love god and love your neighbor,’ and he lived it,” Sister DeMasi said. “I don’t know another way to say it, it was just a great loss.”

Nobody knows Jersey better than N.J.com. Sign up to get breaking news alerts straight to your inbox.

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com