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Date: 1/2/2024
WILLIAMSBURG — Nash Hill Road washed out, but otherwise Dan Bannister, Williamburg’s highway superintendent, reported few persistent problems from Dec. 18’s heavy rain. He credited the Emergency Management Center at the new Public Safety Complex for reducing the impact of a major rain and wind event, including 4.25 inches of precipitation.
“We just got this public safety complex opened up here, and we opened up the Emergency Operations Center, with our emergency management team, and they performed flawlessly once again,” Bannister said. “It made our job much easier.”
Stormwater continued to drain out of the hills, into the Mill River, on Dec. 19. There was some concern about flooding on Route 9 and the river exceeding its banks. While the channel was full on Tuesday, water pitching and running fast, the closure of the bridge over North Street was the only major interruption in travel paths in the downtown area.
Media reports claimed major flooding, but Bannister did not confirm that.
Bannister, also the sewer superintendent, said the town was already in pretty good shape Dec. 19, with only minor flooding. Plugged culverts caused some glitches. Nash Hill Road was repaired by the afternoon of Dec. 19 and the flooding at the Anne T. Dunphy School had been dealt with.
Some flooding outside the school was infringing on the building. Deputy Fire Chief Daryl Springman said the Highway Department set up three pumps to control the stormwater. The building maintenance staff was onsite in the early hours of the morning, called in the Fire Department, then called in the Highway Dept. at 10 a.m., as the rain continued to fall. The students were sent home early, at 12:30 p.m.
“What we didn’t anticipate was the amount of flooding in the yard of the school, which was getting close to the building,” Springman said.
Dec. 18’s storm could have caused a lot more damage, except that town officials learned from a bad storm that hit the town hard last summer. WCVB Channel 5 reported a rainfall on July 16 of 1.58 inches. Gov. Maura Healey viewed the damage caused by the Mill River overflowing its banks, that also flooded Route 9. That storm dropped less than half the rain of the recent storm, suggesting some of the efforts taken to minimize damage worked.
This storm caused much less damage.
“We had some flooding, this last summer, and we took some of the lessons learned during that [event and] had an easier time handling what came up this time,” Springman said. “It crested higher last summer than it did currently, but we are keeping a close eye on it for the next couple of hours.”
Springman said the trouble spots in town were checked periodically to ensure waters hadn’t surged to destructive levels. The weather was more concerning than the damage suggested. The town’s emergency manager, Denise Banister, was at the new emergency management center, as was Todd Dukowski, a representative from MEMA, the state’s emergency management agency.
Dec. 18’s storm, Springman noted, was a first test for the new Emergency Management Center.
“Once a state of emergency is declared we can bring in additional people to staff that, as needed,” Springman said. “If we had a large scale incident we could bring more people into the EOC to assist with planning, as well as the documentation; but currently there’s only three people staffing it.”
The rate incidents were reported, Springman said, everything was manageable. That was also the experience for the Police, Highway and Fire departments in Hatfield, another area town known for flooding when rainfall gets heavy. Lt. Clinton Phillips of the Hatfield Police Department reported two trees were down and a road was partially flooded.
“Between the power company and the town, I think they’ve done a pretty good job of managing the roadside trees,” Phillips said. “One of the trees that came down was actually uprooted. There was nothing anybody could do for that one. We also had one tree that came down near the Town Hall, that took down some private service lines.”
The uprooted tree fell near Primrose Path. Phillips said the water saturation in the ground and high winds knocked the tree over. The wind was a bigger problem, but no other serious outcomes were reported due to downed limbs. The measures taken to prepare the town for a stormwater event, Phillips said, staved off more serious damages.
“Yeah, I think so,” Phillips said. “Not much to report on us.”