The rain has stopped and no more water flows from Broadway Avenue down Rose Avenue.
Water flows out of a storm drain on Rose Avenue.
However, at the storm drain at the end of Marjorie Clarkson’s driveway at 7884 Rose, water is spewing out.
Some of the water runs through the front yard of the Guthrie property, next to Clarkson’s, and down other front yards toward the Masury cloverleaf of Routes 62 and 82. Some of the water crosses the road toward a drain at Charles Street.
It’s Aug. 6, following another heavy downpour. At the corner of Charles and Rose, Vernon Struckman shows a video of what his yard looks like during heavy rainstorms. Water comes down Charles and Rose, fills the ditch on his property and sits in his yard. Struckman said he gave up putting anything of value in his basement, because it’s just going to get ruined by flood water.
He has a heck of a time cutting his grass. because his yard rarely dries out enough for him to get a mower through it, Struckman said, and noted that his driveway used to be level with the road, but now has a trough worn into it from storm water.
“It seems like it keeps getting worse and worse and worse,” Struckman said of the flooding.
Carol and Dale Guthrie said they haven’t gotten water in their basement since they installed a sump pump about five years ago, but Dale Guthrie has to replace his front-yard landscaping and sweep debris off his driveway after every rain, he said. He tries to keep the drain in his driveway clear, but can’t do anything about the drains that come before his, some of which appear to be clogged or collapsed.
Carol Guthrie, who grew up in the home she now lives in, said the street never flooded when she was young, and Dale Guthrie blames the installation of a gas well in the neighborhood some time back with changing the water flow.
“It drove it all down here,” he said.
Clarkson installed a rubber landscaping wall along her driveway to direct water away from her home and toward the road.
“They gotta do something,” Carol Guthrie said. “Somebody’s gotta do something.”
The township is aware of the problem and received two state Issue 1 grants to install drainage pipe the entire length of Rose. Township Road Superintendent Jaime Fredenburg had talked about installing the pipe in June and July, but said Aug. 26 he now is looking at September, October or November.
For the Guthries and Struckman, the work can’t be done soon enough.
“We keep getting excuses,” Dale Guthrie said.
The top photo shows Dale Guthrie cleaning up after a rain storm.
