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Communities clean up after floods

Friday, June 30, 2006

Residents and businesses spent days cleaning up and drying out after this week’s record-setting rainfall. The deluge flooded homes, businesses and parks, overwhelmed drainage systems, damaged pipes and caused gaping holes to open in the middle of roadways.

On Thursday, county officials were still assessing the damage caused by the storms and tallying the cost of repairs, said Tom Pogue, Department of Public Works and Transportation spokesman.

‘‘We are unable at this time to assess the full cost of needed repairs to these and other roads across the county caused by the recent water damage,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Gazette. ‘‘In some cases we need the water to recede from swollen creeks and streams before we can evaluate; there also may be numerous minor situations that we have not had time to investigate and determine appropriate action to take.”

In Potomac, Newbridge Drive between Mayberry Court and Twin Creek Court remained closed on Thursday due to a large sinkhole that formed when two drain pipes failed, Pogue said. He anticipates the road to reopen some time next week.

Another hole developed in the Town of Chevy Chase during the overnight storm on Sunday. The roughly 10-feet-deep hole appeared on Chatham Road at Aspen Street after a 36-inch corrugated metal gas pipe failed, according to Pogue. Chatham Road was partially closed this week and Pogue said it would close completely during reconstruction. The date of completion is uncertain at this time, he said.

Aside from closing streets, high water crept into homes and yards around the region.

When floodwaters from a nearby creek reached halfway up her front porch on Sunday, Kensington resident Sharon Scott had to wade through her front yard with the help of a neighbor.

The water level was ‘‘over my waist,” Scott said. ‘‘That was the scariest thing in the world.”

Six feet of water had already forced its way into the basement of her home, breaking a door, knocking Scott to the ground, pushing shelves against a wall and moving the washer and dryer.

All of her stored memories, Christmas items and love letters were lost in the flood.

‘‘They’re all gone, drenched in muddy water,” Scott said. ‘‘You cannot imagine what that feels like.”

Scott shut off her power as her electric panel went underwater and stayed with a neighbor ‘‘only because I don’t have air conditioning” as the water slowly receded.

By the next morning, the water was down to three feet, she said, and by the evening, it was down to four inches.

And with help from Kensington-based Steven Palmer Electric, Scott was able to hook up her sump pump to extract two more inches.

‘‘We don’t have to water our plants for a while, that’s for sure,” she said.

Although her home and belongings are damaged, Scott said she is maintaining a positive attitude.

‘‘It isn’t Katrina,” she said. ‘‘....So my photo albums are ruined and the letters from my mother are ruined. I don’t need to have a shotgun to keep people away from my door. If you really think about it, it could be a lot worse. It’s just really bad as opposed to really, really bad.”

A cement-lined waterway known as Silver Creek runs about 30 feet away from Scott’s home and channels drainage runoff from the neighborhood through an underground pipe that runs through the town.

The pipe is about 15 feet wide, Scott said, but ‘‘it’s not big enough.”

The overflowing water not only flooded her basement, but also caused sewage backup problems for neighboring residents, she said.

The heavy rain also caused some flooding and damage at Glen Echo Park.

On Thursday, the National Park Service removed an oak tree estimated to be 80 to 100 years old that was in danger of falling the park’s historic carousel after rain soaked the ground, said Malcolm Willoughby, facilities management operations specialist.

The tree had been slightly leaning before the storm, but the softened earth caused it to lean at a more precarious angle, he said.

Removing the tree was a loss for the park, he said.

‘‘It was providing some nice shade for the carousel,” he said.

In addition, the fused glass and blown glass studios in the park both flooded, said assistant facilities manager Brian Buck.

‘‘We pumped [water] out and it just flowed right back in there,” he said.

Manholes in the park that provide access to underground drainage pipes and telecommunications wires overflowed, he said.

‘‘The buildings didn’t suffer too badly,” he said. They’re pretty raw spaces. The floors are concrete.”

Many streets and trees in downtown Bethesda were unharmed by the storms, but not everyone escaped the water.

Alan Pohoryles, owner of Tommy Joe’s in downtown Bethesda, came to his restaurant on the morning of Monday to find an inch and a half of water in the carpeted dining room.

‘‘The sump pump overflowed,” he said. ‘‘There was so much rain that went into our drain, it flooded.”

He said a part of the restaurant’s ceiling collapsed from the rain, but fortunately it was in an area that did not affect workers or customers.

Pohoryles, his kitchen manager and a professional cleaner spent nearly six hours cleaning up after the flood, he said. They brought in industrial dryers and had the carpet professionally cleaned, but Pohoryles said it will need to be replaced.

There were still some damp spots on Thursday morning, but he said the restaurant was ready to serve its customers.

‘‘We’re definitely getting back to normal,” he said.

While some were left scrambling to keep up with the water, others were prepared.

‘‘We’d had a problem [with a badly flooded yard] years ago,” said Nick Suttora of Potomac who upgraded the drainage system at his home two years ago. ‘‘We complained about having to do [the work], but it’s a good thing we did.”

His wife, Linda Suttora, arrived home on Monday to find a pond measuring two to three feet deep and roughly 90 feet wide filling their backyard in the Regency Estates neighborhood.

Confident the waters would not actually flow into the house, the family decided to take advantage of their suddenly waterfront property.

Daughter Hannah Suttora, 14, paddled around the backyard in a kayak, oblivious to the falling rain.

‘‘We took the kayak out and decided to have some fun,” he said.