HARTFORD, Conn. — People in Hartford’s North End neighborhood spent Wednesday cleaning up in the heat after flash flooding created rivers and pools along Albany Avenue and sections of the Capital City.
While people across Connecticut enjoyed the July 4th holiday, the Kothari family was cleaning six inches of water inside Star Hardware on Main Street.
“At least 300 to 400 thousand gallons of water within exactly 15-20 minutes,” said Max Kothari, owner of Star Hardware. “The retention pond that they’re supposed to keep clean was not clean and it overflooded. The residents are playing in sewer water in their basement. Children don’t even know. People aren’t even aware.”
Onica, a mother living with two teenagers, was trapped inside their home.
“The whole area was disgusting. You couldn’t go nowhere. Cars had to turn around,” she said, adding she hopes the city resolves the issue soon.
“You know, just for our sake, our kids’ sake, you know their health, their wellbeing, what they’re breathing in. That’s unsanitary.”
Another woman spent Wednesday drying out the car she recently bought that was submerged.
Stormwater rushed into basements at North United Methodist Church and the Upper Albany Neighborhood Collective.
“It’s frustrating because you spend time cleaning stuff and trying to save stuff that shouldn’t get damaged,” said Mary Young, program director at the Upper Albany Neighborhood Collective.
The most frustrating part for residents and business owners alike: Tuesday was not the first time.
“Storms like this just overwhelm a system that was built for a different century and for a different volume of water coming in,” said Mayor Luke Bronin.
Comptroller Sean Scanlon listened Wednesday as those impacted sounded off. Authorities recently set aside $100 million to fix the issue.
Most of the money will support longer-term structural upgrades. $5 million is reserved to provide relief to impacted residents and businesses.
Comptroller Sean Scanlon said, “We wanted to start a process to get the most money to the most amount of people.”
But with changing weather patterns, some fear they’ll be more damage before there’s any relief.
“If it’s there but it takes months and months to get. You know, it could happen again,” said Young.
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan District said, “Yesterday, the greater Hartford area experienced what is called a 135-year storm, receiving approximately 2.3 inches of rain in 45 minutes. This large amount of rainfall in a short time period caused significant street flooding in some areas. MDC found that in the areas of Hartford that were flooded, many of the catch basin covers were clogged with debris, which impedes drainage. When that debris was removed, the flooding in those areas subsided. Areas that did not have issues with catch basins, such as Albany Avenue, experienced much less street flooding.
“After recent approval from CT DEEP, MDC is scheduled to begin construction this month on sewer separation, rehabilitation and private property work in North Hartford to continue efforts to address the aging sewer system. Previously, the State of CT’s Clean Water Fund was not made available for private property work by our regulators, so this change is a major step to having a direct community benefit, in addition to benefitting water quality.
“MDC is confident that removing stormwater from the sewer system at the property will become the model and standard for other communities across the country.”
Scanlon says the application process for relief will open in several weeks. He encourages residents to document all the damage with extensive pictures and notes so they can be ready when the application process starts. The relief should take several months to get to residents and businesses after that.
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Samaia Hernandez is a reporter for FOX61 News. She can be reached at shernandez@fox61.com. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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