NORWICH – There is still a state of emergency in Chenango County, but residents have seen the worst of the 2006 flood.
City of Norwich Emergency Management Director A. Wesley Jones said 26 crews from outside the county are working with area fire and rescue crews to pump basements. With so many helping hands, the list of 235 city basements in need of drying out should be finished quickly.
“First thing this morning we opened up East Main Street and Barnes Street,” Jones said. Some of the streets like Grove Avenue are going to remain closed to help facilitate crews.” The county still remains in a state of emergency, but travel on public roads is allowed and most businesses are open again.
The flood developed late Tuesday night in the city as the Canasawacta Creek exceeded its banks in a flash flood. The waters quickly rose across much of the west and south sides of the city, filling a number of basements as far east as Broad Street. Before the night was over, the south side was under 3 feet of water and an emergency shelter had to be moved because the flood was coming in the back door.
As the water from the creek receded, the Chenango River began to rise to what, on Wednesday afternoon, would be its highest recorded level in history. By 2 p.m. mid-week, the tributary reached 12 feet 8 inches at Rexford Street, exceeding the previous record set just last year by 8 inches. The result of the two -front flooding in the city was devastating to many.
“In terms of actually impacting homeowners and businesses, it may be close to half of them,” Jones said. “It almost went full-scale across the city from the creek to the river.” The emergency management director said three homes in the city are still condemned due to the damage.
While the county seat struggled with its own situation, other villages shut down main streets, stopping commerce and through traffic. Some were forced to spend evenings in other parts of the county after finding that their way in was no longer an option out. Route 12 was shut down in Sherburne and Oxford for the majority of the flood.
Jones said besides being history-making, the level the water reached was unlikely because of the time of year. He said if the same amount of rain were to have fallen three months earlier, damage would have been much worse.
Much of the damage in the city and across Chenango County was caused by the instant overflow of small creeks and spillways, the same sources that fed the river to its height.
“Flash flooding is very narrow in the scope of where you get it,” Jones said. “A lot of the stuff you see out in the towns, as far as the culverts washing out, that’s from flash flooding ... It’s the most dangerous.”
Isolated thundershowers are forecasted for today and the weekend, but no such amount that would force water levels to their previous level. For the second year in a row, the worst recorded flood in history should, itself, be history.