Residents of Charles Street in Butler are looking for a solution to recent flooding, which knocked down a picket fence a few weeks ago.

Jessica Matthews has lived in a house on Charles Street for about six years and never had issues with flooding in the past, even though a drain pipe runs underneath her property, funneling rain that falls down from Ritts Park.

This year, however, her basement flooded during a heavy rainfall, and buildup of water in her side yard knocked down a wooden picket fence.

While Butler experienced some heavy rainfall and flooding in other areas of town, Matthews said she believes the culprit is some kind of water blockage.

“It gets really high and overflows like a river through our backyard,” Matthews said. “What it looks like is this drain isn't big enough to handle these downpours we've been having.”

Matthews' house is at the bottom of a hill at the foot of Ritts Park. She has a small wooden bridge that goes over a rut containing a pipe that directs water. From her backyard, she can see water flowing from the park through the ravine and into and out of the pipe.

When it rains, water practically sprays out of the pipe, and sometimes runs over it.

Erin Colkitt has lived on Charles Street for about six years, and has also been the victim of flooding this summer. She said she can usually see leaves and bark flow into a street drain when it rains, but that has not caused flooding in previous years.

“You can see that tons of debris comes and clogs it up,” she said. “I just want to know why it suddenly changed.”

Joe Gray, engineer for the city, said he is aware of the issue. Even if the pipe lies on private property, he said he is arranging some help from the city.

“We're trying to arrange to get a camera and see what's happening there,” Gray said. “We'll have to see if there is an obstruction, and what the solution is.”

Matthews said she hopes to get some help to mitigate flooding because she has had to resort to unorthodox methods.

“The first time it broke our furnace, so we had to get a whole new unit put in,” Matthews said. “We put our things on cinder blocks, but it shouldn't be this way.”