After a night of heavy rain, the sun welcomed a new day. But the damage done by heavy rainfall overnight in the Greater Hartford area is only now coming to light.
“I woke up, I was like ‘let me go check the basement and make sure,’” said Angelo Darienco, of West Hartford. “I see like papers floating, so I went down there. I started sucking up water and pushing it all into my sub pump and I just finished about 10 minutes ago.”
It took him nearly three hours to clean up.
Darienco, like his neighbors on King Philip Drive, woke up to a mess in their basements.
“The water in the basement was this high,” said his neighbor, Boris Kantor while motioning to his mid-calf.
Boris’ new carpet was damaged by the water and had to be removed.
“They tried to suck all the water and they pulled out the carpet, all the carpet everywhere,” explained his wife, Rita.
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At Capitol Automotive in Hartford, workers have a busy day ahead towing and repairing cars damaged by the water. But the auto repair shop’s owner, Tim Lee, said not all flash flood damage is visible on the surface.
“Sometimes it does happen the next day when they realize, ‘my car is smelly,’ and the water gets in the vehicle,” Lee said, “When there’s a lot of heavy flooding in the area we get a lot of calls for cars getting water damaged.”
Repairs on water damaged cars can be extensive and expensive.
“A lot of things get damaged along the lines of interior, electrical problems,” Lee said, adding that repair costs can range from a few thousand dollars to, in some cases, more than the value of the car.
