Flooding Continues to Cause Problems in Mass.

(NECN: Ally Donnelly, Wayland, Mass.) - Heavy rain is leading to more street and basement flooding, causing even more frustration for water weary homeowners.

Just before the evening commute, Wayland Massachusetts police shutdown Route 20 -- parts of the main thoroughfare washed out by the overflowing Sudbury river.

Around the Metrowest town -- pumps and snaking hoses are the accessory of the day.

Homeowner Dana Rafuse laments, "All we're doing is pumping it out and it'll come back in."

Rafuse had kept up with the weekend rain and flooding pretty well....but in the middle of the night, his sump pump failed and Tuesday morning he woke to eight inches of water in his basement.

"The clothes are gone, the couches are gone, furniture's gone down here," he said.

Rafuse got help from the Fire Department which put in a pump of it's own, but every few minutes he has to shut it down or it will suck air and burn out -- bringing the water right back into the house. Rafuse lives along a drainage easement, but like many Bay State cities and towns right now, Wayland's water level is just too high.

"It's a shame when it's groundwater," he says. "because there's no insurance...nothing you can do, you can't keep up with it."

A frustrated Stephanie Leung fumed, "This is beyond anything we ever imagined."

Leung lives just a few blocks away....her property is soaked too. She's angry and wants somebody -- anybody -- local, state or federal to fix the drainage problems.

"We're scared, it's the uncertainty -- where you have no control."

Town officials have problems of their own. The basement of the public safety building flooded knocking out heat and electricity -- even forcing neighboring Sudbury to take Wayland's 911 calls for a day.

Police Chief Robert Irving said, "This was a much more significant event than anything we've seen before."

Parts of Pelham Island Road are still under water -- the town shuttling about 60 residents from their homes to their cars relocated to a nearby lot. For days the town had rented colorful Boston Duck Boat tours but the whimsical amphibious vehicles proved too much of a draw.

Irving laughed, "We did have a few people show up just to go for a ride on duck boat and not to go to Pelham Island Road."

Landfill worker Bill Parker doesn't begrudge the whimsy. He joked, "When life deals you lemons, make lemonade."

Copyright NECNMIGR - NECN
Contact Us