Double whammy

The residents of Island Drive in Merrimack, N.H., remember the Mother's Day storm of 2006 like it happened yesterday.

That's because it almost did.

In what's being called the Patriots Day Storm, flooding on April 19 this year ruined several homes along this low-lying peninsula, which had been swamped even worse last May.

The double whammy has residents and officials across the Merrimack Valley wondering how much they learned from last year's floods and what steps can be taken to limit the damage if, and more likely when, the region is inundated again.

"Whatever I do, I'll not go through this again," said Kenneth French of 68 Island Drive, who had just completed renovations to his finished basement when the Patriots Day storm drowned the place again.

"We've had our second 100-year flood in less than a year. Whatever I do now, I'm not going to plan that it's never going to happen again."

That's pretty much the outlook held by public officials paid to protect French and other Merrimack Valley residents who get more than a view of the water when it rains too hard.

Several lessons learned from the Mother's Day storm were retested two weeks ago, and what most are finding is that flood damage control comes mostly after the rains, not before.

"You're not going to stop the river from rising," said Methuen Fire Chief Clifford Gallant. "You just try to give people as much notice as possible that it is going to happen."

That is because part of the problem is that too many buildings are built too close to the water. Mill towns like Lawrence, Methuen, and Lowell tap right into the rivers that cause them so much trouble, and the scramble for waterfront homes during the recent real estate explosion hasn't helped.

Add an aging network of dams struggling to keep up with powerful storms, and global warming-fueled forecasts of worse to come, and the Merrimack Valley has become a very flood-prone place.

"If you're in a low-lying area, I'm not sure there is anything a person can do; that's what's been the most difficult thing," said Merrimack Town Manager Keith Hickey. "I don't think there's anything you can do to potentially stop it, but you can minimize the damage."

That is where lessons learned last year come into play in Merrimack, Hickey said. With the Mother's Day deluge still fresh in their minds, town employees delivered sand to the most vulnerable areas before the Patriots Day flood and were better prepared to move in afterward.

"I think our emergency guys have gotten better because, unfortunately, there has been some repetition here," Hickey said. "This time we were better able to define our ability to respond and assist in the cleanup and give assistance afterward where needed."

In the eyes of some Island Drive residents, however, help wasn't there when it was needed most -- the morning before the rains.

Margaret O'Neill had just put the finishing touches on an entire first-floor restoration of her 60 Island Drive home when the waters rose again April 18.

"We called the town, and they were told by the state that we were not going to have any flooding on our street," she said. "We had 7 feet of water in our kitchen, family room, and dining room."

Favorable weather forecasts were partly to blame for the town's lack of preparedness for the most recent storm, Hickey said. But a bigger problem, and one that Hickey said Merrimack is now investigating, with assistance from Governor John Lynch's office, may have been dam operations in communities upstream.

Hickey said some dam flood gates might have been opened in communities upstream during the most recent rains, causing a surge of water that caught Merrimack and other communities downstream by surprise.

"If flood gates were opened, it certainly minimized the damage upstream, but it caused considerable damage downstream," he said.

"I don't think it was anything intentional, but if a dam needs to be opened, people have to be told about it."

Gallant said Methuen saw a similar surge in the Spicket River, which inundated parts of the city for almost a week last year.

Flooding this year was significantly less, he said, and the city's Emergency Operations Center, a command center for city agencies, worked well again this year after its successful launch last year.

"The coordination between the Police Department, Fire Department, and emergency management at City Hall was very much helped by having the EOC open," he said.

"It prevented duplication of efforts and helped get the resources to where they were needed most."

Coordination between communities in low-lying areas can also curb flood damage, but more so if used as a long-term planning tool rather than crisis intervention, according to Alan Macintosh, assistant director of the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission.

The commission has been working on such a plan with 13 communities in the valley, spurred on largely by lessons learned from the Mother's Day storm.

"The Mother's Day flood underscored the need to be doing something on a regional level," said Macintosh.

"It prompted the regional planning agencies and communities to work cooperatively to develop this plan."

To be released in late fall, that strategy outlines planning and zoning steps communities can take to minimize flood damage, he said.

Stricter building codes, drainage system improvements, and tougher setback requirements from shorelines and rivers will be proposed as ways communities can guard against flood damage, he said.

For the individual property owner, the plan is expected to recommend raising the elevation of a home or building a berm around it to provide flood protection, Macintosh said. Getting more people involved in purchasing flood insurance is another idea.

"Flooding is the greatest natural hazard we face in the Merrimack Valley," he said. "We should be thinking about flood mitigation, not just at the time the flood hits, but before."