With the rain coming this weekend, flooding concerns are once again top of mind for some communities. That includes a Torrington neighborhood that has battled flooding throughout the summer.
A relentless storm on Sept. 11 sent rainwater cascading down a slope around Michele Gray’s house. Flowing through the landscape, it transformed her property into an unwanted waterfall.
“Just the grass and the ground has eroded. It’s gone and it’s a mess,” Gray said.
Gray lives on Darling Street, where she says three storms this year have yielded similar outcomes. Now with this weekend’s forecast for more heavy rain, she’s worried.
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“It’s obvious, there is not anything I can do to stop this rain from coming across my property,” she said.
Gray isn’t alone. Bruce Good lives nearby and says his property has also sustained water damage.
“It just inundated the street and inundated my basement up to four feet deep,” he said.
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Good said he just had his furnace fixed Thursday and has a service coming to clean the mud out of his basement on Tuesday. He hopes he doesn’t have to have them come out again.
Good and Gray said they didn’t have these problems until after a recent construction project on a street parallel to theirs but at a higher elevation. It’s unclear if there is a connection between the Clearview Avenue project and the Darling Street flooding, but the residents would like to see the city address it.
“Either more storm drains or larger storm drains,” Good said. “Something has to be done to capture the water.”
Addressing the situation, Torrington officials have given residents sandbags - a needed precaution this weekend.
“We’re going to set the sandbags out that the city provided and really hope for the best and there’s nothing else that we can possibly do,” Jessica Gray said.
NBC Connecticut has reached out to the mayor for comment, but has not heard back.
