NORWICH – More than two years after devastating floods washed through the area, local agencies are working to ensure that the community will be well informed if future disasters occur.
On Monday, City of Norwich Emergency Management Officer A. Wesley Jones met with employees of High Sierra Electronics to begin installing three stream gauges in and around the Norwich area. Jones has been working to obtain and install the gauges since the city received approximately $27,000 in grant funding from the Automated Flood Warming System Program administered through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in June of 2007. Norwich was one of only five grantees nationwide to receive funding during the last round.
Gauges are being mounted on area bridges covering the Canasawacta Creek and the Chenango River. The gauges will send water level information by radio to the Emergency Operations Center. The gauges also allow the information to be posted on a web site and sent to the National Weather Service. The two gauges placed on the Canasawacta Creek will also record precipitation information.
“Especially during flash flooding, rain fall can be significantly different in different areas. This will allow us to see what the rain fall is and how the stream reacts,” Jones said.
A gauge was placed on the bridge located on Plymouth Street just inside the Norwich city limits on Monday afternoon. The other Canasawacta Creek gauge will be placed on the Rt. 23 bridge in South Plymouth. The Chenango River gauge will be placed on the Rexford Street Bridge in Norwich.
“The Chenango River gauge is different,” Jones said. The two creek gauges contain sensors that go down the wall of the bridge and into the water to determine water levels. The river gauge bounces a signal down from the bridge and back up to determine the distance between the water and the bridge.
Installation of the gauges will be completed by Wednesday, Jones said, and the information will be sent to the Emergency Operations Center. “As soon as we can, we’ll get the information out so the public can see,” Jones said.
Obtaining the stream gauges has been something the city was working on even before the flooding occurred. “The 2005/2006 floods made this a higher priority, but we’ve been working on this project for eight years. We just had to find funding,” Jones said. The need for a weather gauge was actually established even earlier. In 1953, the predecessor to the National Weather Service, the Weather Bureau, said there was a need for a Norwich river station.
Jones said, while the gauge will be set up and ready to go by Wednesday, there will probably be a learning curve as levels are established for the first time. Mike Sprague, an emergency manager from Steuben County, where an active stream gauge system has already been established, will be traveling to Norwich to help with the set up of the software and radio installation.