I thought that this comment by "Steve-New Milford" should be posted:
Maybe one of these days, the mighty Bob Guendelsberger will use his considerable legal superpowers to put the screws to the state of Connecticut to quit screwing around and FINALLY fix the flooding that chronically shuts down Route 7 in front of Southworth's.This chronic flooding is a hassle; but more than that, it's an embarrassment. I think it's just great that we're improving Route 7, but I don't recall a plan to similarly improve the DETOUR around Lake New Milford every time we get heavy rains and run-off.Is Pat Murphy, Clark Chapin and/or our Town Council addressing this issue? If so, what are the plans?
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Route 7 Flooding
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24 comments:
I forgot to mention that I have friends who work in businesses affected by the Route 7 flooding. Robert's Auto (formerly K-Tech and other businesses occupying this property), for example, has suffered repeated damages and losses because of this nightmare.
How much does it cost to erect barriers at each end of Lake New Milford and post police sentries at each end of the "lake," 24/7, for days on end every time this happens? Isn't this money that could be better spent elsewhere on New Milford's infrastructure?
There must be a solution. How about the Army Corps of Engineers. The Civil Works Office for New Milford is :U.S> Army Engineers District, New England, 696 Virgina Road, concord, MA 01742-2751, tele (978) 318-8111.
Are you guys kidding me? There is a huge flood plain there. I won't go into the "protect the wetlands" speech because I don't think many here would listen, but the cost would be phenomenal anyway.
Just some guy said... is absolutely correct. What is it that steve-newmilford expects the State to do for a handful of businesses in this floodplain? Are they supposed to spend $50 million building walls or filling the area so that it can flood somewhere else? Were these business owners not smart enough to know that the area occasionally floods? It's not a secret. Leave it alone! It's not that big a deal. The business owners should stop whining. They had to have known the risks. These latest storm events were unusual. We've heard this before - people build where they shouldn't and then the government is supposed to bail them out. The most practical and least costly thing to do would be to get the businesses out of there and leave it as flood plain. That would make Rt. 7 look a whole lot better also.
Somehow, Holland still manages to keep the North Sea out of their front and backyards... AND creates new above-water property as well.
I think that the primary objective should be to get Route 7 above water... Route 7 was not built by New Milford business owners -- it was built by the State of Connecticut and, in my view, was a bad design from the beginning.
Perhaps Representative Clark Chapin would consider approaching the State to suggest that we pursue the acquisition of an opinion from a Dutch engineer or two.
Working with the State and local business owners, we can find someone on this planet who knows more than we do about how to fix this problem.
It's not whether they can stop the flooding, but at what cost - financially and environmentally.
It would be cheaper to eminent domain those businesses, demo them compare to the cost of raising the road. (any offset by their taxes is minimal compared to the cost of "fixing" the river from flooding.
Should the state have done this as part of the project? Yes.
The north sea analogy is weak. Holland would be under water without the sophisticated system they have. The country would be islands without the dikes. New Milford is not in that level of danger.
And don't forget it is safer not to be in the flood plain to your property and your employees. What happens if one of CL&P's dams break? Wouldn't you rather be somewhere else?
So, anonymous, your solution is to take property away from citizens, not hold the State liable for bad design, executed not once, but twice... when the road was first built and a second time when it was widened and "improved," also allowing for the periodic submergance of Route 7...
Please pardon my laughter.
I believe that the Holland analogy is 100% appropriate. It's about protecting and serving citizens, including those who travel through the Netherlands, not just the people who live there. The same can be said about New Milfordites and other people who use Route 7. Permanent solutions with one-time costs do exist.
If its expensive, so what?
Periodically subjecting drivers of automobiles and tractor-trailers to twisting roads of residential communities is a dangerous and irresponsible position to take in my opinion and, no solution at all.
Periodically subjecting local residents who pay taxes to live in residential zones to the dangers and inconveniences that come with heavy traffic on roads clearly not designed to handle this traffic is unacceptable.
If you are dumb enough to purchase property in an area that is in a flood zone than it is your problem. Anyone who puchased property there knows the risk they are taking. Don't ask me to subsidize a fix because you have a business in a flood plain!
Settle down - I'm partially agreeing with you. But I'm a tax payer and I'm all for protecting and serving but there needs to be a cost benefit analysis.
ie there wasn't water on the road yesterday, there isn't water on the road today. So, this isn't a constant issue. It's a flood plain, it's how the flood plain was built. Silt from the river is deposited over hundreds and thousands of years. Not letting it flood is unnatural and potentially injuring your business(build the dam higher);)
Why I say I agree - The state/town should have taken into account the aesthetics and potential flood danger to the businesses and property on the river side. If a big hole was dug where Southworth's is, the road wouldn't have water.
I do question your bad design twice comment - you mean in 1707when they founded the town by the river and then in 2007 when the project was finished.
Your next fix will be in 2307.
To your Holland point, we should throw money at a no-win situation.
Why not fix the high roads(Fort Hill and Sunny Valley) vs fixing the low road(Route 7) and make them safer for the travelling public?
If the roads are unsafe when they are busy, they are unsafe when they aren't.
I'm guessing the word you were looking for is inconvenient or unfortunate not unsafe.
I believe you should have said, 'Due to traffic, forthill and sunny valley are unfortunetly busier than usual.'
or Due to the traffic, I am inconvenienced and need to drive around.
Not unsafe.
If there is a safety issue on those roads you should let someone know because after all you are concerned about the town not just yourself.
US Highway 7 was constructed between 1920 and 1928, not 1707 as you seem to suggest. It was officially added to the US Highway System in 1926. It would have been nice if the terrain were properly assessed at that time, but it clearly wasn't.
In 1998 the DOT presented its proposal to widen the existing road to 4 lanes from Brookfield to the intersection of Route 202 at Veteran's memorial Bridge. With almost 100 years between first and second builds, the State of Connecticut still didn't get it.
My points: 1.) the State of Connecticut neglected or ignored the importance of proper road elevation in the 1920's when Route 7 was first built and again almost 100 years later when the State doubled its width.
If you had a spouse or school-age children, you wouldn't bother trying to substitute my words about safety in a residential neighborhood with your own apparently less thought-out selections.
Try to imagine for a moment how you might feel if you knew your child was getting off a bus and had to cross your street with bumper-to-bumper traffic, including tractor trailers, dump trucks, garbage trucks and snow plows in front of YOUR house.
Try not to second guess the diction, vernacular and intent of people with whom you disagree... trust me, you're not good at it.
What you are saying is you are upset that you bought a house on a through road?
I'm not happy the road floods, I just don't want my tax dollars to pay for more work when there is another way around.
Safety concern - Last I checked cars, dump trucks, and garbage trucks still have to stop for school buses. I think state law allows tractor trailers to ignore the red lights.
And by definition - bumper to bumper traffic isn't moving.
But I'm not good at that there -diction, vernacular and intent
Sorry common sense vs. education anyday.
And dude you are seriously blaming highway engineers from the 1920's for the river flooding. The population of town in 1920 was 5000 people. I'm guessing most people still didn't have a car and when the river flooded people didn't need to commute to NYC.
Are you seriously one of those people waiting for the government to fix everything that is a mild inconvenience?
Maybe we should fix the problem and
make those business pay for it because I don't want to.
And Steve, consider getting anger management I think you need it.
I would like to contribute one thing.
The greatest disservice any of these businesses are doing is to exaggerate the problem.
This has been going on for as long as I have been in town.
The newstimes or New Milford Times has pictures in the paper everytime this floods. I would guess that at least once every two years it floods for part or all of a day.
Do not give people a false expectation of the government's ability to control mother nature.
N'Orleans is a prime example. $100's of millions of your and my tax dollars and a big storm comes and costs us billions because people built in a bad location. People moved to a bad location.
For the uninitiated or presumptuous such as yourself, anonymous, I live off Littlefield Road which well above the flood plain with absolutely no possibility whatsoever that traffic will ever be re-routed through my neighborhood for any reason. I do not own a business or have any vested interest in anything within the affected Route 7 flood plain area. I can and do easily navigate my way around Route 7 every day, even when it isn't flooded.
So, are trucks and traffic also required to stop for children after they get off the bus and walk to their homes? It's not yet door-to-door service everywhere, at least not yet. Why do you think I blame engineers for flooding? I never said that. If an engineer built a bridge too low and the river rose over its roadway, would that qualify in your mind as an acceptable "mild inconvenience" or would that be what I claim it to be?... bad engineering.
Are roads and bridge really that different?
If you are really serious about everything you wrote about the acceptability ("mild inconvenience," your words) of Route 7 flooding, "dude," you really should consider giving up your day job and trading it in for comedy. You're friggin' hilarious. I'm not kidding when I say some of the stuff you wrote is laugh-out-loud funny. Keep up the great work... you da man!
P.S. for anonymous... I reserve words like "anger" and its evil twin brother "hate" for special situations, like if someone were to break into my house, rape and murder my wife and daughters.
In my view, anger and hate are words best reserved for situations where these emotions bring on irrational behavior, often ending badly and sometimes very, very badly.
One more thing... don't give up your day job for psychology. I actually do have a minor bit of college training in that dicipline and can tell you for a fact, you're not any better at identifying patients with a need for anger management than you are at simple second-guessing. Really, you're not.
I'm not an engineer, but it seems to me that putting more gravel and fill under the blacktop to raise the roadway a couple or three feet would permanently keep Route 7 above water.
To steve-newmilford - boy this one really got you worked up. I tend to doubt that the engineers simply forgot about the flooding. The elevation was intentional. If you raise the road, it is just going to flood somwhere else. It's not that simple. And your low bridge example is highly unlikely. If you build a bridge too low, you lose the bridge. Remember - the water is moving and that is a lot of force. That is what happened in the 100-year flood of 1955. Many bridges were lost in Connecticut. Pevious posters are correct - it's not worth the cost for the occasional flooding that occurs. Suppose you did raise the road - what do you say to the guy who's business or home now gets flooded when it did not before? The low area is going to get flooded - that's the way it is - unless you want some enormously expensive public works project to benefit a few businesses. Forget it - it ain't happening, nor should it. The only thing that might make some sense is taking down part of the Bleachery dam. Let's see if that goes anywhere. It was in the paper - they're talking about it.
I would like to point out something that seems to be over looked. Everyone that says the road should be raised fine that’s great no more flooding right? Yes you are correct!
Then there are the people that say if you raise the road people in Bangladesh (you get the point) will get flooded because the water needs to go somewhere. They would be incorrect.
You see and I will keep this simple you are only raising the road three to four feet over what a tenth of a mile by four lanes wide? Yes you are correct again sir! The road will still have drainage going under it and while the businesses will still get flooded the everyday citizen will be able to get up and down Rt.7. Including the ambulance that needs to get from McDonalds to the hospital without going around. Remember folk’s heart attacks are about seconds and going around the flood is more like minutes.
Now here is the rub. The amount of material that is used to raise the road will not displace any significant amount of water to cause flooding anywhere on the river. That is like saying adding a large ship to the ocean will cause the oceans to rise. It will not have an effect on it. It is a scale thing and that is another lesson.
To anonymous on March 15th at 5:59 PM - I don't think anyone is talking about flooding Bangladesh or even Bridgewater by raising the road. But you would certainly create an increase in flooding on one of the adjacent properties. The filling will certainly displace water that had occupied that space. Of course it would. Not somewhere else down the river - but next door. The ship in the ocean also displaces water but it is not noticeable because the ocean is so huge compared to the ship. You pointed out that it is a matter of scale - which is correct - but then use the ship and ocean example (huge scale) to refute the fact that filling a space will cause flooding somewhere else (small scale - next door). If you fill a bucket with water and then put rocks in the bucket, does the water spill out? Anyway - no one wants to see the ambulance take longer to get to the Hospital but it goes back to a cost issue. Whether it is businesses losing some business or lives being put at risk because of extra minutes in the ambulance, does this justify the cost? I think the policy decision was already made when DOT did not raise the road this last time.
To anonymous... You seem to be working a lot harder defending your position than I am pointing out bad engineering. Your knickers are apparently in a twist defending what I perceive to be a defenseless position. When you are not busy doing that, you seem to have an unnatural interest in my psychology and making borderline personal attacks. That's interesting. And telling.
Tellya what I'm gonna do "for the heck of it"... first, I'll introduce myself: my name is Steve Kinney. I have lived in New Milford since 1989. I've already been down the road of taking a position and pursuing it with passion. I have, in the past, urged and encouraged local government to take action and participated with New Milford's Health and Safety Task Force.
Do tell, what's your name?
Secondly, after I get done typing this little ditty, I am going to make a telephone call and pay an in-person visit to Southworth's and propose that the very next time Route 7 floods, we assemble a flotilla of rafts and boats at one end of Lake New Milford and ferry New Milford citizens across it, Venice style, in a protest that will make newspapers throughout the state, if not the nation.
This should adequately draw attention to New Milford's plight and put it into the media spotlight. I'm pretty good at organizing this sort of thing; Jay may concur and cite events of ten years ago. If I recall correctly, New Milford, under Art Peitler, created a Health and Safety Task Force to address issues I raised at that time. I particularly enjoyed the Sempra protests and bringing images to the internet.
There is a good chance that I may be able to get you some face time with a News Channel 30 reporter so you can state your position to everyone in the State of Connecticut and every reader of the AP newswire. Who knows? You could become an overnight sensation by simply stating your opinion and get your 15 seconds of fame.
So, anonymous, do please introduce yourself to everyone by stating your name for all to see and let's get on with it. Let us have an honest discussion, shall we? The anonymity of the internet allows people to talk smack without implication. It is a far more intellectually honest thing to do otherwise.
Peace.
One more thing, anonymous, whomever you are, I will be printing out the contents of this thread and sharing it with business owners in the affected Route 7 flood area.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I feel quite certain that these businessmen and women will be just as interested as I am in gathering facts and learning about alternate proposals for resolving (or not) problems facing owners of affected property on both sides of the flooded Route 7 area.
Steve - I'm not the anoynomous you speak of, but
Is this an average year for rain fall and/or snow pack?
The businesses do themselves a disservice without presenting facts to the public to prove their assertions of "casual" flooding.
From the FEMA website:
New Englanders Urged to Purchase Flood Insurance Before Spring Thaw
Release Date: February 27, 2008
Release Number: R1-08-030
BOSTON, MA - With spring on its way, the threat of flooding once again looms over New England. Last season all six states received a federal disaster declaration following a mid-April event and each of the last three years has brought declarations to the region due to severe storms and flooding.
So what can individuals and families do to prepare? Buy flood insurance.
Property owners, renters and business owners are urged to purchase flood insurance. The only requirement is living within one of the more than 20,000 communities in the nation participating in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).
The benefits of flood insurance far exceed that of federal disaster assistance. The most prevalent form of assistance comes in the form of a low-interest loan and is only made available within a federal disaster area. In addition, a disaster assistance award averages $4,000 - often well short of the actual damage.
There are many myths surrounding the NFIP and flood insurance policy. For instance, many residents assume that homeowners insurance covers flood damage – it does not. Another misnomer is that a property must be in a Special Flood Hazard Area or a “floodplain” to be eligible for coverage – not true. In fact, 20 to 25 percent of all claims occur outside of a floodplain.
The average cost of a $100,000 flood insurance policy in New England is a little more than $800 per year making it far more affordable than the high costs of reconstruction. It takes 30 days after purchase for a policy to take effect, so it's important to buy insurance before the floodwaters start to rise.
Find out more about your risk and flood insurance at www.floodsmart.gov. To purchase flood insurance or find an agent, call 1-800-427-2419.
I'll throw one more log on the fire.
Was there a federal emergency declaration for this casual flooding?
No and there wouldn't be.
Are there more appropriate businesses to be located there?
If the businesses expect support on this website, you should know that evidence is preferred to general statements.
Demonstrate the case that these events are abnormal given the specific weather this year.
My general comment is: We are not flooding during a drought.
My specific would be:
We received 36 inches of snow this winter and I don't have the total precipitation total, but I know it rained this winter as well.
We received 15 inches of rain this year alone.
My analysis would be:
these events are above or below average. These events were concentrated during short periods of time and over a broad area.
My conclusion would be:
the river flooded because of too much water during too short a period of time.
And I bet they can get the water off the road, whose business can they flood?
Nobody is arguing about whether or not this is a flood plain. We all know it is. At issue here is what is and what is not acceptable.
I've lived in this town a long time and never seen Route 7 flooding this bad. I haven't taken meteorological measurements.
What I do know for sure is that the Route 7 flooding is a dangerous, insufferable menace and an ultimately fixable embarrassment.
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