The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Rains wreak havoc on roads, property
Old bridge collapses, sending heavy mix of asphalt, debris, water into neighborhood
“It really was a miracle nobody was actually on it when it collapsed.” Moodus resident Lisa Cassenti
EAST HADDAM — The force created by a deluge of rain that fell in a short period of time Tuesday night, combined with detritus, caused an ancient bridge to collapse dramatically — breaking up the roadway and causing near catastrophic flooding in the Moodus part of town.
One homeowner’s property, at the base of the hill on Neptune Avenue, sustained heavy damage to his yard, cars and shed.
“His vehicles were slammed about,” First Selectman Emmett J. Lyman said Wednesday. “This is probably 15 or 20 feet deep, the trench that was created. And it’s all the earth. If you can imagine the volume, something like that the full width of a road, and all of a sudden that just lets go and goes downstream. That had to be a pretty remarkable thing to see.”
The home is right behind the house Lisa Cassenti shares with her two children and husband high on the hill across from the American Legion, about 100 feet from the bridge. Her property suffered no repercussions from the collapse, but the ordeal was a test of nerves, she said.
“It was a miracle nobody went down with it, because the American Legion was open. There were people over there. We get quite a bit of traffic even though it’s a tiny little road. It really was a miracle nobody was actually on it when it collapsed,” she said of the bridge. “I’ve been trying not to get my mind to go there too much, but when you really think about it, this could have been a major disaster.”
Schools were closed Wednesday due to the effects of the storm.
Cassenti is worried the electrical pole near her house will topple. “It’s roped off, because there are still bits of mud still falling down and parts of the pavement aren’t well-supported. They’re trying to keep people off it,” she said. “That electrical pole, there’s ground giving away around it, and we’re really hoping it doesn’t go over, because they’re talking more rain later.”
Cassenti’s 13-year-old son, Matthew, a budding photographer, surveyed damage first thing in the morning and took pictures and videos.
Her husband came home after picking their daughter up from the dance studio at about 8:15 p.m. Tuesday. Shortly afterward, Cassenti heard a sound she first thought was made by her daughter, who was showering. “The roads were ponding up really bad. I heard a weird noise. Everything seemed fine,” but then her son spied emergency vehicles outside.
“We looked and the whole thing had collapsed about 15 minutes after [her husband and daughter] got home. The whole road is washed out there.”
“It’s a very old, filled-in area where, instead of using conventional culvert, it was built out of stone ages ago,” Lyman said.
After attending the 7 p.m. meeting of the Lake Association, Lyman headed home toward the Swing Bridge off Route 82 — but soon ran into several obstacles. “It was raining quite heavily: all sorts of standing water in places where it never is.”
As he made his way through the intersection where Shagbark Lumber & Farm Supply and Two Wrasslin Cats are located, “there was about 8 to 10 inches of water on my tires.”
That’s when Lyman realized he needed to assess the damage, so he checked in with fire and public works crews. By 10 p.m., the situation had badly devolved. “It got pretty bad from there on out.”
By morning, the extent of destruction became apparent: trees had toppled, roads were significantly washed out, and many streets were blocked or cordoned off in the village center.
“A great deal of materials slid down onto (Route) 149 and made that impassible, so they closed the (Swing) Bridge.” Lyman soon learned Mitchell Road had washed out quite badly and a man was stranded in his car.
There’s a swale next to the American Legion, Lyman said. “Apparently, way back when, somebody decided the road needed to go across that gulley. The way they accomplished it was to build a culvert out of stone. These are massive, beautiful stones — wonderful stuff. Once they built that culvert down at the bottom of the valley, they proceeded to fill it in and built a roadbed over it, and it was just strictly the fill going across.”
Emergency officials told him the culvert that had been there for 100 years was not able to handle that volume of draining water. “And it all filled up above the road, which now became a dam, holding everything in, and it may have been debris blocking the end of the culvert that caused it.
“The first thing you knew, the whole thing just blew out, took the road and everything with it. It’s a massive cut in the road. It’s going to take a lot to repair.”
Since the major damage from Tuesday night’s storm was centered in a small portion of Middlesex County — East Haddam and Haddam — Lyman said, he doesn’t believe the state or FEMA will provide financial aid for cleanup and repairs.
“It’s just two towns involved, are we going to meet the minimums?”
So Lyman has alerted the Board of Finance the town will request approval for various projects in the near future. By town statute, officials can make immediate and necessary repairs as a result of such emergencies.
The Cassentis woke up Wednesday to find several news crews outside.
The couple chose their home because it’s in an area that enjoys many of nature’s bounties.
“When we moved here, that was part of what I liked, because you can hear the brook when you’re sleeping with the windows open in the summer. After a good rainstorm, you can hear it rushing, and it’s very relaxing, but last night it was actually kind of ominous because that much of the road had collapsed,” said Cassenti, who admitted she didn’t sleep well overnight.
“We’re far enough over, I didn’t think we’d go down the hill, but you never know,” she said with a laugh. “You’ve got your kids sleeping in the house — mama bear comes out. You want to make sure everybody is safe.”