Firehouse flood damage minimized by blockades

WASSAIC — The aftermath of the March 6 storm was certainly not the first time the downtown hamlet of Wassaic has dealt with major flooding. But as Wassaic Hose Company Chief Scott Boardman explained, planning and plenty of past experience helped minimize the potential damage to the Wassaic firehouse, which dealt with incoming water head-on.The last time such a large amount of water came rushing into the hamlet was 2007, Boardman said. During that flood, the chief estimated that nearly 1 foot of water flooded the firehouse. The damage was severe; today, wood paneling has replaced the original sheetrock around the bottom of the firehouse walls.Following that flood, the nearby Pawling Corporation factory reached out to the fire department and offered to donate its labor, as well as provide a discount to dress the building with several DoorDams, a product Pawling Corps. manufactures. Wassaic only had to pay for the materials, and the building actually ended up being used in a commercial for the product (it can be viewed at doordams.com).“Those are what saved us more than a couple headaches,” Boardman said, attesting to the DoorDams’ success in diverting a large amount of water from entering the firehouse.But there was only enough money in the department’s budget for a few DoorDams (they are industrial grade and the materials are not cheap), meaning that not every exit on the building was covered. While all of the doorways on the north side of the building, which is the side that was hit with the floodwaters, are sealed with the specialty doors, the side entrances remain unprotected. During the most recent flooding, Boardman estimated that 6 inches of water entered the building. But two weeks after the storm, the fire department and district leaders met at the building to assess the damage and found that, at this point, there is little.“It doesn’t look like there is any lasting damage,” Boardman said, adding that moving forward there is the possibility that the floor tiles may buckle as the water dries, but for the most part the fire department’s preventative efforts paid off.The other big part of the fire department’s response to the flood was the installation of two culvert pipes at a dirt bridge on the former Allen Sand & Gravel property (now Gro Max, a composting business) north of Wassaic. In 2007, that culvert washed out and sent a massive amount of water into the hamlet. Back then, Boardman said, the fire department didn’t know that the culvert would be a problem.This time they did, and Boardman said he kept an eye on that bridge during the rain of March 6 and into the next morning, when the culverts (one of which was plugged by a fallen tree branch) finally did wash out, around 11 a.m. That sent a second wave of water down into the hamlet of Wassaic on March 7.Wassaic residents directly in the flood plane were evacuated from their homes before that deluge by members of the Wassaic and neighboring fire departments late into the night on March 6. They were sent to the Amenia Town Hall gymnasium, and nearly 20 people stayed the night on cots.“We knew the road was going to wash out again,” Boardman said, “and we knew the culverts [on the Gro Max property] were going to go, which is why I evacuated those homes. We just didn’t know when it would go.”At the March 10 Town Board meeting, two Wassaic residents pointed out that no one had evacuated them from their homes. Boardman explained that everyone whose home was in danger from potential flooding (using the 2007 flood’s aftermath as evidence) was notified that night, and that the two residents with concern were outside the danger zone.“If the water ever rose up high enough to effect those buildings ...” Boardman said, trailing off. He indicated that a storm of that magnitude would mean the water would have to have risen at least several feet higher then it did during the March 6 flooding and would be far worse than anything Wassaic has ever experienced.After the flooding had begun to subside on the afternoon of March 7, members of Wassaic’s hose company worked hard with pumps and mops to clear out the firehouse. Moving forward, it wants to install more DoorDams until every exit on the firehouse is covered, but as Boardman pointed out, they are expensive and the fire district doesn’t have the money to pay for all of them.“But Pawling Corp has been a big help to the fire company,” he added. “Those DoorDams saved us.”Another issue to consider is that the bank of the Wassaic Creek continues to erode with every storm. The last bid the district received to address the issue by repairing erosion would cost between $80,000 and $90,000.As far as the Gro Max bridge and culvert pipes are concerned, Deputy town Supervisor Victoria Perotti said she had spoken with the company owner, Kip Weigelt. Gro Max has been issued an emergency permit by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation to temporarily repair the bridge (which has since been completed); the company has hired an engineer for future plans to build an actual bridge.“He is very committed to getting the bridge put in,” Perotti said, “and putting it in correctly so that Wassaic doesn’t ever get flooded again because of issues with that culvert.”And while that particular issue certainly wasn’t responsible for all of the flooding that occurs in downtown Wassaic during heavy storms, there’s only so much that the hamlet can do to prepare for the next one.“When the stream comes up, you can warn people to get sump pumps,” the fire chief said. “Many of them have already moved their furnaces up higher. Most of them take precautions. Everybody else got the ice, we got the rain.”

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