PEABODY — The city remained relatively unscathed during the recent downpours that caused damaging flash floods in neighboring Lynn.
City Council President Joel Saslaw wants to make sure the city’s good luck continues to hold out. At Thursday night’s council meeting, Saslaw requested the public services department look into developing a storm drain database.
“One of my constituents, who also serves on the conservation commission, requested that the Department of Public Services start a database that identifies all storm drains in the city and the date they were last cleaned,” said the city council president.
Peabody, especially the downtown, has been no stranger to damaging floods over the years, although the reasons for the flooding went well beyond clogged storm drains. The Mother’s Day flood in 2006 was national news, with a photo of Peabody Square under more than six feet of water making the front page of The New York Times.
That flood was neither the first nor the last to hit Peabody Square hard, but recent years have seen improvements that have helped mitigate some potential issues.
“We used to clean the catch basins but the lines were still full,” said public services director David Terenzoni. “Now, when we are cleaning the catch basins, we are also cleaning the lines that go into the basins, giving us more capacity. It’s not solving all the flooding, but it is helping.”
The public services department does record which catch basins it cleans, but said that tracking will be easier once the GIS system the assessing department uses is updated to include more information.
“Once it is online, we will be able to pull the information right up,” said Terenzoni.
While the public services director said the department is limited in some respects by manpower, workers do try to hit each catch basin in the city at least once per year.
Other areas that are prone to flooding, such as Foster and Walnut Streets, will get more attention during the year.
“We do have a system in place, but it is more reactionary at this point because we are hurting for bodies,” said Terenzoni. “If a storm is coming, we will hit the major areas. If there is flooding and someone notices a catch basin (backed up) we will put in a work order for that catch basin.”
Other efforts to help minimize flooding in the past several years include the clearing of debris and vegetation from waterways and a retention pond that was built behind the new Higgins Middle School.
Saslaw referred further discussion of a storm drain database to the council’s public services committee.
