Date: Fri 02-Feb-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

weather-flooding-rain

Full Text:

Winter's Weather Woes Find Their Way Into Local Basements

B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

Newtown residents braced for more snow, rain and freezing temperatures this

weekend, the memory of last week's storm still fresh in their minds.

More than 2« inches of rain fell in the Danbury between early morning and late

afternoon last Saturday. The rain combined with melting snow, overcoming

drainage systems and flooding basements. Gusting winds knocked down electrical

wires, causing brief power outages.

The first call came in to the emergency dispatch center at Edmond Town Hall at

2:13 pm on Saturday when a resident on Sugar Lane said "a river of water" was

flooding into her basement. Volunteer firefighters from Newtown Hook & Ladder

responded, diverting the water away from the house.

About an hour later the calls began to pour into the switchboard. Between 3:40

pm and midnight there were 20 calls from residents whose basements were

filling with anywhere from two inches of water on Papoose Hill to 12 inches at

a house on Hanover. At 8:52 pm residents of a house on Housatonic Drive said

they were evacuating because the rising river was flooding the house.

Silt washed from dirt roads in Pootatuck Park, filling catch basins and

clogging the drainage system, causing water to pour down the roads, creating

massive gulleys that washed out the roadbed beneath parked cars. Employees of

the town's highway department worked through the night to clear the drainage

system and dump truckloads of fill on the roads. (See related story.)

Roads washed out all over town with significant damage on Ox Hill Road and

Scudder Road. Town road crews put in more than 155 hours of overtime on

Saturday and Sunday in a storm which cost the town about $10,000, according to

Public Works Director Fred Hurley.

At 6 am Sunday, calls began coming in to the dispatch center from all over

town as residents awoke to find their basements filling with water. Again the

lakeside communities were among the hardest hit. Residents reported anywhere

from 12 inches of water in a home on Shady Rest Boulevard to waist-high water

on Housatonic Drive.

In all, there were 39 emergency calls for pumping between 2:13 pm Saturday and

7:14 pm on Sunday. Hook & Ladder had the most calls, responding to 24.

"It's a great service," Dispatcher John Reed said. "Try to get a plumber out

quickly on a weekend to pump a basement, and see how much it costs. The fire

companies usually respond within 20 minutes and it's free."