Revere councilor wants tally of cost after days of heavy rainfall in area

REVERE-Ward 4 City Councilor George Rotondo wants the city to tally up the cost of claims made against it by residents in the wake of heavy rainfalls.City public works officials fought last Friday?s downpour and early August rain-driven flooding by activating tidal gates and pumps. They plan to upgrade pumps and make drainage improvements to Sherman, Arcadia and other streetsRotondo wants a list of the personal cost of recent flooding as represented by property damage claims against the city by homeowners and businesses. He also wants a tally of costs related to public works and other employees assisting residents during storms.Sherman Street is one source of claims following an Aug. 8 rainstorm and a pump failure on the street that deluged Sherman Street basements with sewage.Following the storm, Mayor Thomas Ambrosino warned two-dozen homeowners that permanent Sherman Street drainage improvements could take years to plan and pay for.The city?s first priority, Ambrosino said, is to help residents calculate damage from what he called “a catastrophic event.”Sherman resident Roberta Ministeri told City Councilors and Ambrosino she had four inches of raw sewage in her basement.?That was my daughter?s home,” she said.Public Works Superintendent Donald Goodwin said Sherman is served by a pump system that can handle sewage but not heavy flooding.The city plans to clean and upgrade flood prevention pumps including a new alarm warning system for the Sherman Street pump.The city hired a consultant last spring to assess the pumps? condition and propose an annual maintenance program for the pumps. The initial maintenance work will be done this fall.Councilors are also seeking city officials? recommendations for improving drainage on Asti and Tuscano avenues and Eastern and Tapley avenues and Gore Road.Drainage improvements done in connection with construction of the new Rumney Marsh Academy are designed to reduce or eliminate flooding on these streets.The city was saddled with $900,000 in repair costs to a culvert near the American Legion Highway site of the new school. Workers discovered the collapse in March 2007 near the commuter rail tracks.The collapse posed major problems for the city because the 24 inch-wide lines carried sewage from the eastern side of Revere, including Point of Pines, to pipe connections along Legion Highway.A company specializing in underground drain work laid temporary drain lines and installed pumps while engineers sketched out a plan for rebuilding the culvert.Contractors think the culvert was built on top of wood timbers and other debris and gradually sunk under its own weight into the unstable material.