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Neighbors unite to fight torrential rainsWednesday, July 5, 2006The last time it rained hard enough to flood her Chevy Chase neighborhood, rushing water ripped Ketch Ryan’s basement door from its hinges and caused thousands of dollars in damage. This time, she was ready. In the driving rain on the night of June 25, she and a handful of neighbors stood guard over the apparent source of the flooding — the storm drain at the intersection of East Avenue and Stanford Street in the Town of Chevy Chase. Armed with rakes and pitchforks, they stood in waist-deep water, stirring up debris to prevent the drain from becoming blocked. ‘‘It’s very specific to that one drain,” Ryan said. ‘‘They’re appalling drains. All it takes is like three magnolia leaves, and it gets blocked.” The storm drain collects water from Ryan’s street, Oakridge Avenue, along with five others — almost the entire west side of the Town of Chevy Chase. While town officials have complained for years to the county’s Department of Public Works and Transportation about the drainage problems in town, there are no plans to address the issue. ‘‘The intersection at Stanford and East is kind of unique, but there are inlets all around there, and that intersection we believe passes the demands of a 10-year storm design,” county spokeswoman Esther Bowring said. Leonard Bruno lives on East Avenue, four houses down from the storm drain. As water began to rush down his driveway, he and his two grown sons ventured out into the storm to help Ryan. ‘‘It was that or experience what happened two years ago,” Bruno said. ‘‘We had firsthand experience of what would happen when that drain is clogged.... This supposedly once-in-a-lifetime event is happening again two years later.” In addition to pulling branches, leaves, orange traffic cones and other debris away from the drain, the neighbors took other preventive measures for the water that did make its way to their homes. Ryan bought 900 pounds of sand and barricaded her basement. Bruno and his sons, Nat and Ben, built a makeshift dam near the door to his mud-room. Bruno said he is not sure what the solution is to solving the street’s drainage problems, but suggested an additional storm drain might help. ‘‘We’ve been there 23 years now and the first time anything like this happened was two years ago,” he said. ‘‘And now it’s happened again two years later. Something’s changed.” For now, the neighbors are on their own, left to form posses to patrol their own storm drains during severe weather. They have no choice, if they want to protect their homes. ‘‘That’s the irony,” Ryan said. ‘‘Nobody around here can get flood insurance. It’s completely out of pocket.” While last week’s storms brought more rain than the region has seen in 60 years, Ryan and Bruno both said they sustained less property damage than the July 2004 storm because they were prepared. ‘‘The only thing I lost this time was my water heater,” Ryan said.
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