West End residents want action
While flood-weary city residents living near Sullivan Run — who cleaned up muddy water yet again on Saturday — may be skeptical of hearing it, help is on the way.
Mayor Ben Smith said Monday city officials have done all they can to facilitate the Sullivan Run Improvement Project approved by city council in November 2008.
Smith said the project involves dredging the creek, removing and replacing certain culverts and reshaping Sullivan Run in specific areas to reduce the flood plain and open up the creek. He added it is also now in the hands of the state Department of Environmental Protection.
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The city borrowed money, obtained rights-of-way and took other actions in an effort to bring actual work to fruition, according to Smith. He said the project aims to provide relief to homeowners and renters affected by Sullivan Run overflowing its banks — as it did on Saturday and many times in recent months.“The city is ready to go,” Smith said. “We are in a better position right now than we ever have been. It's just that we can't do anything without (the DEP's) final go-ahead.”Smith said the completed project should greatly alleviate flooding in the area around Miller and West Brady streets. However, he went on to explain that extremely heavy rain in a short time period and debris washing downstream from other municipalities are out of the city's control.Smith lives 30 feet from Sullivan Run in the city's Island neighborhood. He lost a vehicle and suffered damage to his property in a past flood.“I know what they're going through because I've gone through it myself,” he said of the residents of the West End, admitting the creek floods more frequently and heavily in that area. “But that doesn't help anybody or make them feel better.”Desperate for actionLandlord Natalie Franko has owned two rental properties on West Brady Street beside Sullivan Run for 25 years. She said the creek has flooded 20 times in those years.“It has flooded four times this summer,” she said.Franko said one problem is that debris from upstream collects at the bridge on West Brady, which backs the water up and sends it flowing into the yards and basements of homes upstream.“Every time it rains, all of us go rushing down there and pull out the debris log by log,” she said. “That's the only way we can protect our property.”She said another problem is upstream runoff from anything built near Route 422.“When the (Abie Abraham V.A. Health Care Center) was built, we saw a drastic increase in the amount of water that comes down Sullivan Run,” Franko said.She said the Army Corps of Engineers promised to dredge the creek as soon as possible after a devastating flood in 2017 filled many basements with muddy water from the gushing, overwhelmed Sullivan run.“They put it on their emergency list and said they would be there, and they never came,” Franko said.The DEP, she said, asked her 25 years ago if they could take core samples from her property for a project to alleviate flooding at Sullivan Run.“The DEP has had it in their hands for 25 years,” said Franko, frustrated by the ongoing situation.
On Monday, Franko and other homeowners voiced their anger over the city taking on a $1.3 million project to replace street lights on Main Street, while people living along the creek replace furnaces and bleach their basements as a result of flooding.“That lighting project, who cares?” Franko said. “Can the city get the dredging done?”In addition to dredging, Franko would like to see the West Brady Street bridge over Sullivan Run replaced with one that won't cause a dam when debris washes downstream. She urged officials to look closer upstream and learn where the extra water is coming from.“I just want people to stop being negatively impacted by this, myself included,” she said.Brian Kendrick, who lives along Sullivan Run on the south side of West Brady Street, said he has been dealing with the flooding all 12 years he has owned his home. Like Franko, he too blames his flooding woes on upstream development near Route 422 and the inevitable debris dam that forms at the West Brady Street bridge.Thankfully, he said his sump pump kept his basement from flooding during Saturday's torrential downpour.“It just would have filled up,” he said.Kendrick spent Sunday and Monday hosing down and bleaching his basement for the umpteenth time.He said the city told him three years ago that the creek would be dredged and a nearby bend in the creek would be removed to improve water flow.“All they did was put these rocks in,” Kendrick said, pointing to large stones that jutted from the banks of the creek.John Cooper has seen numerous floods in the 71 years he has lived in his Snyder Avenue home.His story echoes that of his neighbors, all of whom have heard many promises over the years with limited results.“The Army Corps of Engineers was here two years ago,” Cooper said. “They were writing things down on paper and taking pictures. What did they do? Nothing.”Get it solved before the next stormCooper had a backflow prevention valve installed two years ago on the drainage system in his basement to help mitigate floodwaters after four feet of muddy water filled it. Still, the waters rush over the concrete wall and dump into his yard and basement during severe flooding.“I'd like to get it solved before the next storm,” Cooper said. “Widen and deepen (the creek). It just makes sense.”Jason Turner of State Street lives directly across Sullivan Run from Cooper.His mortgage lender requires him to carry flood insurance on his home because he lives in a flood plain.Two years ago, the insurance company paid him $10,000 for $15,000 in damages after the deductible was satisfied. Turner lost his furnace, washer and dryer, hot water heater and other belongings in the 2017 flood, which poured three to four feet of creek water into his basement.On Saturday, he just had some mud in his yard, which never fully recovered from 2017.He said the creek can handle steady rain, but it's the hard and fast rain that causes it to dam up the bridge and back up into his yard.“When you watch the radar, you just start to get that anxiety,” Turner said. “You don't want to see those red blobs coming.”Smith said he will continue to work hard toward getting the DEP to begin work on Sullivan Run for his constituents who are affected.“It's obviously getting to me,” he said of the continuous floods in the West End.
