NEW LONDON, Conn. (WTNH)–Connecticut did not get a lot of rain this summer, but just one day of rain caused flash floods in some areas. One of those areas was Bank Street in New London.
The water was hip-deep in some places there, leaving cars stranded in the middle of the road. It also poured into a few restaurants, leaving up to a foot and a half of water in store basements, and a whole lot of mess to clean up.
It even warped the gym floor at the local high school because a drain pipe was clogging underneath it.
On Monday, the city council’s public works committee is meeting, and on the agenda is flood analysis. Some say the city’s pumping station should have prevented the whole mess.
News 8 spoke with the interim public works director, who says the three pumps powered by 190-horse power diesel engines were all turned on before the first raindrop fell.
“We made sure all three pumps were working, and fired them up. So when the rains came, we were running and it did drain the water off that whole water shed,” said interim Public Works Director Brian Sear. “Bank Street did flood for a short while but it wasn’t a stagnant situation it was actively pumped.”
Sear told News8 that as soon as the rain ended, the pumps cleared the water from the streets pretty quickly.
He said with more than two inches of rain falling an hour, the intensity was like a 75 to 100 year event.
