“It’s crazy. Water’s flooding through into the basement. I don’t even know what to do anymore. Look at that.”
Kristin Mills recorded video of water coming into her Manchester basement during the height of Tropical Storm Henri.
“I grabbed towels and then suddenly my son was yelling me and was like, ‘Oh there’s water coming in through the window,’ and I yelled, ‘What do you mean?"
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A second video she shared with NBC Connecticut shows her East Center Street backyard turned into a river.
When Mills moved to Manchester, she never thought flooding would be an issue.
“Not at all. I don’t even know of any water sources near us and here we are.," Mills said.
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Manchester Department of Public Works says the drainage system just couldn’t keep up with that heavy amount of rain.
On Monday, restoration crews did what they could to mitigate damage at the Mills abode.
In the chaos Sunday, Mills called her neighbor Kiya Young.
“My neighbor was like, "You need to come home now,' and it was basically a waterfall flowing into my house,” said Young, who shared flooded photos of her Gerard Drive home basement.
“When the police department came, they said, 'We need to evacuate now.," Young said.
Emergency officials took her grandfather and another neighbor to safer grounds by canoe.
“The firefighter said something about needing a boat and I said, 'Well I have a canoe in my backyard,'” said Erin Hayden, who lives next door to Young.
Hayden was happy to have officials use her canoe to help her neighbors.
“It was like a movie,” said Young.
Now these close-knit neighbors are cleaning up after a day they’ll never forget, as the rain continues to come down.
“It came all the way up to our steps. You can see the debris line. It was a wild few hours for sure,” said Hayden.
“At the end of the day it’s just stuff, but you know, it’s still hard,” said Mills.
Lt. Governor Susan Bysiewicz and U.S senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal toured damaged areas of town, like a road collapse on Ambassador Drive.
The director of public works says the twin culvert was in great shape, but water and soil inundated the pipe flow and the system failed.
Murphy and Blumenthal said they are working hard to get federal disaster assistance to help towns recover from the storm.
The federal funding could help mitigate the impact on taxpayers as municipalities, like Manchester, work to fix storm damage, but the assistance usually cannot cover the personal property damage as many homeowners we spoke to were dealing with today.
“I have insurance, but they don’t cover flood because this is not a flood zone, so basically I’m relying on help. If somebody tells me who to call, I’ll call.”
