GREENE – Village highway, electric and public works crews have been racking up the overtime as they struggle to deal with the more than five inches of rain which fell in Greene between Sunday afternoon and Monday evening.
“It was just such a tremendous amount of rain in a short time that the drains couldn’t handle it,” said Mayor Marcia Miller.
Crews who spent Sunday night and much of Monday dealing with the aftermath of thunderstorms which dropped at least three inches of rain on the village overnight were called back into action again after a second storm hit.
“We got two inches in less than an hour,” reported Graham Centerwall, who works with the Village Highway Department.
The additional rainfall proved more than the village’s sewer system could handle, causing storm drains to back up into several side streets including Driscoll, Willard, West Juliand and South Canal streets.
“No system can handle that amount of water that fast,” said Miller.
The village’s waste water treatment facility, on Water Street is struggling with the increased volume. “It’s taken all it can,” said Centerwall, who informed the village board last night that the plant was in “full-blown flood mode” as with more than a million gallons of water going through the system which was designed to process a quarter of a million gallons a day.
The high waters also caused the ground to sink by approximately 12 inches around the sewer system’s old lift station on Monell Street Extension, he reported. The mayor reported that issue had already been addressed as of this morning.
According to Miller, many of the calls crews dealt with Monday night involved ground water seeping into the cellars of village residences. At this time, she said she does not believe that any long-term damage was caused by the flood waters.
The mayor commended not only the village’s highway, public works and electric crews, but also the police and fire departments for their assistance during the last two days.
“We have a lot of dedicated employees and volunteers,” she said.