Winter Bestows Water

In All Its Forms

By Andrew Gorosko

A storm of mixed precipitation that began Tuesday afternoon with snow, and then changed to sleet and freezing rain, ended with heavy rainfall on Wednesday.

The storm swelled local brooks and rivers, creating ponding on roads, and diverting water into some basements.

According to the National Weather Service in Upton, N.Y., the storm dropped 1.57 inches of rain in Newtown, putting that rainfall on the low end of the scale for the towns in this area. In Brookfield, 3.82 inches of rain was reported, and 3.44 inches of rain fell in Ridgefield. A Danbury measurement listed 3.15 inches of rain.

Sandy Hook firefighters were busy for two and a half hours on Wednesday afternoon as they pumped out the basement of an office building at 1 Washington Avenue in Sandy Hook Center, where water to a depth of about five feet had accumulated, said Sandy Hook Fire Chief Bill Halstead.

The firefighters received the call for help at 3:26 pm and responded to the large building on the corner of Washington Avenue and Riverside Road, Chief Halstead said.

Three flush-mounted stormwater catch basins in a parking lot had become clogged with leaves upslope of the basement. The water that normally would fall into those catch basins was thus diverted and found its way into the basement, the fire chief said.

The water damaged sheetrock in the basement, as well as some files that were stored there, he said. Firefighters used three pumps to suck water out of the flooded basement.

“We pumped a lot of water,” the fire chief said. The building which now serves as an office building formerly was a house.

At 3:52 pm, Sandy Hook firefighters were sent to Lakeview Terrace where they pumped about six inches of water out of a home basement, Chief Halstead said.

Also on Wednesday afternoon, Dodgingtown firefighters went to Sugar Street and to Rock Ridge Road for basement pumping duties.

Joe Pollina, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said that a period of snow and icing can clog stormwater catch basins, which when followed by heavy rain, can result in localized flooding.

The storm produced heavier rainfall than occurred during past storms this winter, he said.

Chief Halstead, who also is the town’s emergency management director, said he knew of no cases in which roads became impassable due to road flooding.

The storm that occurred this week was not nearly as serious as the April 2007 nor’easter that caused extensive flooding in town, he said. In that storm, during a 24-hour period, local firefighters responded to 76 calls to pump out basements. Many roads were closed due to flooding during that storm.

Joe Tani, operations manager for the town highway department, said that heavy stormwater runoff on Wednesday damaged three local gravel roads that are prone to drainage-related problems — Ox Hill Road, Town’s End Road, and Point O’Rocks Road. The moving water caused severe rutting on those roads, he said. In some cases, ruts formed across adjacent driveways.

Town road crews were doing repair work on those roads on Thursday, he said.

Mr Tani said he expects that significantly more rain fell in Newtown on Wednesday than the weather service’s 1.57-inch rainfall reading.

“Last year, it was much worse,” Mr Tani said of the flooding problems caused by the April 2007 nor’easter.

No local roads were closed due to flooding during the storm this week, he said.

Snowfall that is followed by heavy rain creates conditions in which slush accumulates at stormwater catch basins, plugging those basins and diverting stormwater to places where it otherwise would not flow, causing drainage problems, he said.