BRIDGEPORT — When the Rooster River overflowed in a storm and inundated her Renwick Place home in 2018, Sheila Ortiz consoled herself with the thought that the incident had been a once-in-a-lifetime flood.
“I had just moved in two weeks before, and everything we had was in the basement and we lost it all,” Ortiz said Thursday as she and her neighbors pumped water out of their basements once again. “I remember thinking, ‘Well, that’ll never happen again.’”
When the remnants of Hurricane Ida brought torrential rain to the region Wednesday night, Dave and Christina Ramos, Ortiz’s next-door neighbors, stayed up nervously watching the weather reports and the rising river across the street from their Cape Cod style house.
“The river starts rising, and then it starts backing up,” Dave Ramos said. “Once it came over the retaining wall, it filled in the area and I was chest-deep in water.”
After the September 2018 flood, Christina Ramos said, city workers and Mayor Joe Ganim had come out to inspect the damage to the neighborhood. Since 2018, the city has installed drain scuppers in the river’s retaining wall to allow flood water to drain back into the river.
“But that only helps drain the water away after it stops raining,” Ramos said.
Dave Ramos said he was thankful he had remained vigilant throughout the night, because at least he had been able to move the family’s cars to higher ground. Ortiz had made a similar decision.
“The river was at the top of the wall, and it was still raining,” she said. “The news said we were going to have heavy rain for two more hours and I thought, ‘That’s it. We’re done.’”
Ramos also credited...
from News https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Bridgeport-neighborhood-must-rebuild-after-being-16431796.php
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