Swampscott 100-year flood a 100-year problem

SWAMPSCOTT – The flooding on Stetson Street and Burrill Street following torrential rains on Saturday is a problem that dates back more than 100 years.Department of Public Works Director Gino Cresta said an area on Stetson Street and the area under the Burrill Street bridge have been problematic for more than a century.”There is a picture in Town Hall taken in 1910 of the bridge on Burrill Street being flooded,” Cresta said. “It’s not a new problem and a permanent fix would cost millions of dollars.”Cresta said both areas have been severely flooded three times in the past year, which is more frequent than usual.”Whenever it rains we usually get a few inches of water in those areas,” he said. “But we had two 100-year storms in the last year and on Saturday rain was falling at a rate of two inches or more per hour. When we get rain like that it’s not unusual to get several feet of water in those spots. The drainage system just can’t keep up.”Cresta explained those two areas are prone to flooding because the roadway is lower than surrounding areas.”The roadway had to be lowered so trucks could get under the train bridge,” he said. “If the road were raised up, trucks couldn’t get under there.”On Saturday, when a brief rainstorm dumped more than two inches on the North Shore in an hour, a family from Milford had to be rescued from their vehicle when it got caught up in the rising waters on Stetson Street near the site where a former bridge was located.Cresta said the DPW erects sawhorses to close the problematic areas off to traffic whenever massive flooding is expected.”We did put up sawhorses but the timing on the rain was not what was projected,” he said. “So the saw horses went up after the area had started flooding. People need to use common sense and not try to navigate through areas that are flooding.”Cresta said a permanent fix would require ripping up the roads and replacing the existing drainage pipes with larger drainpipes.”We also need to replace all the drainpipes those drains feed into,” he said. “It would mean replacing the pipes feeding into the ocean too. It would cost millions (of dollars).”