SOUTH HADLEY — Water laps at the front of Ron Girard’s garage on Bolton Street, his front lawn now completely submerged in runoff.
A neighbor jokes that he could open a lake for the town.
“This is the worst it’s ever been, but it’s happened before,” Girard said.
Heavy rain Sunday night and Monday morning flooded several streets around South Hadley, including Bolton Street. In a statement on Facebook, the South Hadley Police Department cautioned drivers to watch for puddles, slow down and seek alternate routes.
South Hadley received 2.5 to 3 inches of water between Sunday and Monday morning, according to the National Weather Service. The area is estimated to have received 5.7 inches of rain over the last seven days as of Monday at 7 a.m.
Mike Wilk, who lives next door on Bolton Street, said most of the residents on the street have submersible pumps to protect their basements. Bolton Street is at the bottom of the hill, so runoff from other areas will pool in low spots on the road.
“There’s nothing the town can do,” he said. “It’s too much water for the system to handle.”
It’s possible that the drain is full of dirt and debris from the storm, but regular flooding in this area is due to system overload, Wilk said. If the seep basins fill up, then the runoff pools into the road.
At 11 a.m. Monday, water covered a strip of Bolton Street and continued into an opposing parking lot, where the drain was also not doing much to bring the water down.
“When we get a lot of rain at once, it gets right into the building,” Girard said.
Department of Public Works Director John Broderick could not be reached for comment on Monday, though employees with the town’s Parks Department flagged the road for the DPW crews to clean up later in the day.
