Heavy rains cause a splash in the region

PLATTSBURGH — Thursday afternoon’s heavy rains caused flash flooding throughout the City of Plattsburgh and in neighboring areas.

A section of Downtown Plattsburgh on Margaret Street had standing water of several inches late in the afternoon that seeped into some street front businesses.

“There was water all in through here,” Josh Forster, owner of The Hidden Gem on Margaret Street, said.

“There was mud and dirt and cigarette butts floating in here. It was a mess.”

Forster, 28, has owned the business, a metaphysical gift shop, for four years. It has been at its current location next to Hobie’s restaurant for the past two years.

“I was talking with my landlord and he’s owned the building for 42 years, and he’s said he’s never seen anything like this,” Forster said.

The flooding came on fast shortly after 6 p.m., Forster said, just before he was getting set to close at 7 p.m. He spent until 2 a.m. Friday cleaning up the mess.

Other businesses on Margaret Street between Clinton Street and Broad Street had messes to clean up as well as that is where the water seemed to pool the most.

PROJECT

A major portion of Margaret Street Downtown as well as sections of Brinkerhoff and Court Street, were totally reconstructed in a major project last summer that included replacing storm water and sewer systems.

Mayor Chris Rosenquest stressed that the flooding Thursday was caused by an unusual large amount of rain in a short period of time, and not due to any system failures.

“The same thing happened everywhere throughout the city,” Rosenquest said.

“We had three to four inches of rain that happened in 30 to 40 minutes. It was a torrential downpour. Any system is going to be overloaded. It’s not just Margaret Street. It was Beekman Street, South Peru, Durkee Street... It was all throughout the city.”

Several people had posted on social media video of the flood waters on Margaret Street with numerous comments about the quality of the construction project.

The mayor said the construction quality was not the issue.

“I know that people want to focus on Margaret Street just because there was a lot of people down there,” he said.

“Most of the videos came from Margaret street, but if you drove around, which I did during that time, you would have seen flooding everywhere. It was a problem everywhere throughout the city.”

Rosenquest pointed out that there was flooding in the Town of Plattsburgh as well as three significant sinkholes appeared on roads on the former Plattsburgh Air Force Base in the town, and flooding in Burlington, Vt. and other regions also.

“I know people want to focus on Margaret Street like somehow the construction had made that happen that way, but that is just not the case,” he said.

SYSTEMS SEPARATED

Rosenquest said he checked with city department heads to make sure there were no other concerns on Friday and the situation seemed to have calmed down.

During the construction project, the storm water and sewer systems were separated, Rosenquest said.

“I don’t think that there was any sewer backup, at least not that we know of... that was stormwater in the street.”

To build a system that would handle that much volume of water in such a short time frame would be extremely costly, Rosenquest said.

“When we do construction projects typically we don’t plan for that amount of rain all at once,” he said.

“That would be a massive system and cost prohibitive. The amount of rain that we saw, again, was just unprecedented and it would be for any system that gets built, and again, it’s not just our municipality. We saw it throughout the region.”

Rosenquest said there was flooding on several city streets with several people reporting flooded basements.

“We even had flooding in City Hall,” he said.

TOWN DAMAGE

In the Town of Plattsburgh, sinkholes appeared late Thursday afternoon on Idaho, Connecticut and New York Roads.

Highway Department crews blocked off portions of those roads to keep travelers safe.

Town Supervisor Michael Cashman said portions of those roads will be closed, possibly for a few weeks until crews can make repairs to the 72-inch underground pipe that was damaged.

“That size pipe is not something you can just pull off the shelf,” Cashman said.

WATER EVERYWHERE

Clinton County Emergency Services Director Eric Day said the storm Thursday reminded him of last summer when the region got hit hard by three major rainstorms in a few weeks.

“We got hit hard (Thursday) and I think there was more rain in Downtown Plattsburgh than other places,” Day said.

Estimates from the National Weather Service had the city getting more than 4 inches of rain in a short period of time, Day said.

“That’s a lot of water that came quickly,” he said.

There was also flooding at the Clinton County Department of Social Services building on Durkee Street, Day said, as water crept into the first-floor area.

“There was a lot of water in a lot of places,” Day said.

“Too much, too fast.”