4th Avenue Floods Again
The recent rains were too much for the drainage systems of 4th Avenue, it seems. According to these photos from the Facebook page of the Root Hill Cafe, which is at the corner of Carroll Street, the flooding took out the entire intersection and much of Carroll Street going down towards the canal. Based upon…
The recent rains were too much for the drainage systems of 4th Avenue, it seems. According to these photos from the Facebook page of the Root Hill Cafe, which is at the corner of Carroll Street, the flooding took out the entire intersection and much of Carroll Street going down towards the canal. Based upon the comments, it sounds like this isn’t the first time this spot has been hit either. You can click on any of the photos above to expand or go to the jump to see a video of the same scene.
“actually the cellars don’t get hit that badly. The water comes from street level, so it pours in from above (ground floor.) The cellars don’t ever seem to get more than a foot of water during these floods, at least on our corner.”
I think 12 inches of water in your cellar is pretty bad. But that’s just me.
“The cellars don’t get hit that badly. The water… pours [into the] ground floor… The cellars don’t ever seem to get more than a foot of water…”
“Brooklyn’s Venice!”
“No doubt Canada geese will move in soon adding to the problems.”
“[There’ll be a new] federal law protecting the geese requiring 4th ave to become wetlands.”
This is a fun thread!
> Every five years…
More like every TWO years:
– http://bstoner.wpengine.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/06/over_the_weeken.php
ninethreesix, I don’t think we should only build houses on top of hills, but we should carefully consider the topography and drainage before we encourage residential building in flood zones. People used to consider water very carefully, for thousands of years. It’s idiotic to grant residential zoning and encourage development with tax abatements in high-risk areas. Fourth avenue flooded before it was called Fourth Avenue. It annoys me to no end that private money is made doing very stupid things, only to be bailed with public money when (fully preventable) disaster strikes.
“The cellars don’t ever seem to get more than a foot of water during these floods, at least on our corner.”
that’s encouraging. 🙁
Ah, now we know there was a reason they built warehouses and working class houses in these places a hundred years ago, not luxury brownstones. Reminds me of how I’d always exclaim in frustration, “there’s a reason they didn’t build houses there in the 1920’s!” whenever the mud slides in So Cal would take out a hillside of newly built houses.
This hasn’t happened here in two years. since the city fixed the drains on this corner; prior to that we were having these floods at least once a year. National Grid is doing some work on the corner and they happened to be futzing with the sewer lines right before the big storm. It seems likely that they caused this flood this time. It’s funny how yesterday morning the NG workers were freely discussing “pulling up the sewer” (whatever that means), but when they were asked about it after the flood they claimed that they had no idea about anything. Hmm….
@East New York: actually the cellars don’t get hit that badly. The water comes from street level, so it pours in from above (ground floor.) The cellars don’t ever seem to get more than a foot of water during these floods, at least on our corner.
Fourth Avenue has flooded since day one. Daily Eagle archives writes that it was constantly flooding and was essentially an impassable open sewer.
Brooklyn’s Venice!
this is an ongoing constant problem – see the “slope” in park slope. one of the reasons i split the hood. i had so much flooding in my house – went through multiple sump pumps, dug out new drains, hired 2 different contractors, blah blah.
yes, i know only new construction has problems, but these old houses on the lower end of the slope are not going to get away from this flooding easily. my neighbors, and friends even 10 blocks away all suffer from the flooding. big thing to consider before buying