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Poor woman
By adamg on Sat, 08/02/2008 - 7:18pm
Every time there's a heavy rain, this woman, who lives on the southbound side of the VFW Parkway, just past the West Roxbury Parkway, dons her boots and raincoat and goes out with a rake to try to keep the storm drain and "dry" catchbasin outside her house clear, to minimize the damage from flooding. She's been doing that a lot lately.
Her house sits in a small depression, which means water flows toward her from both directions on the parkway. Plus, the storm drain leads to a pipe she says goes uphill to the main storm sewer along the parkway. So whenever it rains, the road floods. Sometimes it's as much as 2 1/2 feet deep. Sometimes it flows into her basement. She's not a happy camper, but she says the city and state refused to do anything because it's really just her house that's affected.
Only it isn't. As we talk as today's torrential downpour was finishing up, somebody drives toward her lake. She waves her rake at the driver to get her to slow down. This driver gets through OK, but some people get stuck; she recalls one woman whose car stalled out, so she climbed out of her window onto her roof until the water receded.
Earlier:
West Roxbury, South Brookline swept away by flooding, sinkholes.
Flooding, if not as bad, on the West Roxbury Parkway near Bellevue Hill:
Menacing clouds over Millennium Park:
Free tagging:
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Comments
her driveway looks a lot
her driveway looks a lot like my office's parking lot.
Mayor's Hotline, hello....
http://www.cityofboston.gov/mayor/24/
And they'll probably refer you
to the DCR, which owns and maintains the VFW Parkway.
Most of the time
Every time I call the hotline they always take care of the problem themselves. If that means that they need to contact the DCR then that's what they'll do.
Actually
Edit: if she is just outside the rotary, she is served by a BWSC drain pipe. And it flows downgradient, not uphill to Bussey Brook on the other side of the rotary. The problem is the pipe saw a lot of rain and surcharged. She is at a low point. Theres nothing anyone can do. Its a "tough luck" situation for her, no amount of raking or whatever she is doing is going to help.
If she has an issue with the drain system, shee needs to contact BWSC. They are responsible for its maintenance.
As a kid I lived in a "city
As a kid I lived in a "city valley" of sorts where all the water from everywhere else would rush down the hill and not drain fast enough. For years nothing was done and the home owners would come out themselves and rake the grates to keep the garbage off. Finally the city came in while redeveloping another lot and put in an extra grate in the middle of the street which seemed to get clogged less often. They would also spend more time sweeping the area of debris year round. Thats the biggest problem is just getting garbage and leaves and all that other "shit" off the street before it becomes a problem. Its not that hard for DCR to do, just have people stop by once a week and do an extra cleaning around that drain area and any other problem drains...
The road I mentioned still floods in heavy rain, but drains within 10 minutes of the rain stopping which is much more reasonable than the two hours it took previously.