To quote an old song: If it keeps on raining, the levee’s going to break.

In Zelienople, residents are witnessing the effects of torrential downpours on infrastructure that can’t handle it.

On Monday, residents turned up to Zelienople’s council meeting to rain down complaints about the inability to mitigate high water in their town after recent rainstorms. Their commute to the meeting was greeted with another frightening downpour that made the streets treacherous due to flooding and poor visibility.

Of course, there’s nothing anyone can do about the weather. But as one attendee noted, “I don’t expect a whole lot from the government, but I do expect infrastructure and I do expect safety.”

Driving on county roads — especially in Zelienople — during and after recent thunderstorms has been nerve-racking, as residents can attest.

During Monday’s meeting, resident Daniel Karns noted that recent flooding during rainstorms doesn’t appear to be a result of the Connoquenessing Creek overflowing, but rather an infrastructure issue. Sewer backups, blocked culverts and drainage from other areas appear to be the culprits.

Another resident, Dan Kosak, said a pipe on Lampard Lane is too small to handle the amount of water that results from a massive downpour, while resident Andrew Barclay suggested installing a culvert or bridge to allow water to flow unobstructed and make it easier to clear debris, which residents say is piling up in tributaries and causing safety hazards.

Don Pepe, borough manager, said that three stormwater management rock dams were installed above Interstate 79 last year as part of a 10-year plan that’s now in its third year.

He added that the dams were meant to handle an inch of rain per hour, but noted that during recent storms, “We didn’t have an inch an hour.” During one storm, a rush of water left two dams overwhelmed and a falling tree destroyed the third.

While we understand that the 10-year plan created by the borough’s engineer was too “overwhelming and cost prohibitive” to complete all at once, we also agree with council President Allen Bayer when he noted that, “Maybe we need to re-prioritize.”

It’s great that the borough has been taking steps to handle water issues in Zelienople. But unfortunately, recent weeks have been a test on those mitigation efforts — and the extreme weather has shown that efforts need to be reconsidered.

Currently, businesses are negatively affected, homeowners are left to pump water out of their basements and roads become dangerous whenever the borough is hammered by a rainstorm.

And the situation continues to get worse, residents told council on Monday.

Borough leaders should continue to take feedback from residents who are suffering during these storms, and leave room for change in the borough’s plan to combat them since their severity requires a greater response.

The rain’s not gonna stop.