Saturday, May 3, 2014
Lindenwood inundated with floodwater
From PIX11:
What’s causing sewers in this neighborhood to back up into streets, driveways and garages every time it rains?
It’s a question that city engineers try to figure out, while they carry out maintenance work on the sewage system. Its performance during this week’s record rains underscored just how severe the problem is.
On street after street, for about twenty square blocks, every house has almost all of its basement, garage and, in some cases, its first floor belongings sitting out on the curb, awaiting trash pickup after the rising sewer water ruined them.
While the two straight days of rain this week are part of the reason for the damage, the other part, residents told PIX11 News, is the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, which operates sewers.
“In this part of the neighborhood,” resident Lou Mastrangelo said, “the sewer system couldn’t handle the volume of water.”
Nearby neighbor Anthony Feller seconded that assessment. “All the sewers here were backed up, and after hurricane Sandy, they were never cleaned out,” he said. “Is that the answer? I don’t know.”
The DEP doesn’t exactly seem to know either. Its spokesperson told PIX11 News that the department had engineers looking at the situation. Lindenwood is not considered by most insurance companies to be in a flood zone, and even after Sandy, the homes that flooded in the neighborhood did not see water nearly as high as that which rose during Wednesday night’s rainstorm.
DEP had work crews out in the neighborhood on Friday, working in sewers and draining remaining storm water from streets. The department also sent staff members out into the neighborhood, offering residents claim forms to fill out to try and get reimbursed for their losses. Despite those efforts, however, nobody from the DEP would comment on the record about the overall flooding problem.
Stop paving over your lawns. Problem solved.
5 comments:
TRUE!
I observed (on a hill) in my own nabe, that homes which retained their lawns absorbed a lot of the rainwater, where while others who paved over them allowed the water to cascade in torrents into the sewers.
So do you want to follow the "No like tree. No like grass" attitude ?
Result...maybe you "NO LIKE WATER" IN YOUR BASEMENT!
Decide what's better!
You make a good point QC,I seen many houses in lindenwood and even howard beach that replaced big lawns with pavement.
But sea level rise around Jamaica Bay is clearly a factor.Also the DEP obviously did a half assed job cleaning the sewers for so long,maybe even before sandy.
Somehow,the city has to find funding for infrastructure to save these water surrounding towns.
Dirt is a natural sponge for rain. Some people who do pave-overs come from countries where basements are extraordinarily rare and can't foresee the consequences of heavy rain with no dirt or drain to flow into.
Another thing, outdoor drains on private property that are not maintained lead to flooding.
While my neighbors cemented over their drains, mine is still functioning to their benefit draining the run-off from their roofs.
I heard that the DEP is taking responsibility.. saying they forgot to open the flood gates
Why didn't the homes have backflow preventer valves installed in their basement drains? It seems that the homeowners should share some liability if they have never made any effort to avoid basement flooding.
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