HARTFORD, Conn. — A group of Hartford neighbors is raising their voices over flooding concerns in the Blue Hills section of the city.
“Officially we’re not in a flood zone so why should we have to go through this?” said Deb Jervis who lives on Pembroke Street.
Jervis said she’s had to get her basement renovated after flooding three times in the last few years.
“The basement back up that’s frustrating,” Jervis said. “Filing numerous claims, the risk of getting kicked out of our insurance. And our premiums going up and more storms are probably coming in the future so I just don’t know what to do right now,” she said.
Jervis is not alone. Granby Street resident Kenneth Green shared photos with FOX61 from August 19th, which show the water being high enough to move and tilt his shed.
“We had over a foot of water in our basement and our house was surrounded,” Green said. “It’s just poor drainage. We don’t think the system, in terms of the overflow mechanisms, work, and there’s — nobody takes responsibility once it happens.”
Many neighbors at a community meeting Tuesday night said they’re faced with the same issue and have been for years.
They want solutions to this long-term problem and answers from the city and the Metropolitan District, which provides water and sewage services to Hartford.
MDC said no system is designed to take on the amount of rain Connecticut has seen from recent storms.
“Standards went out the window with what’s happening with climate change. We never saw a storm like this, not to see two of them one after the other run a week,” MDC aboard of Commissioners Chair William DiBella said.
Green suggested MDC set aside a portion of money from resident payments to go toward paying for help when residents have flood-related issues.
City councilors for the area said they’ll put together a round table with all the stakeholders, including MDC, the city, and state representatives to get a stream of solutions flowing.
“Let’s talk about the sewer system itself, the design, and the engineers can discuss that. We will have a meeting here so we can get the right people there,” DiBella said. “We will lay out what we do, how we do it, and why we do it and there are other things we have nothing to do with.”
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