After the flood
Water damage assessed in millions as hard-hit areas begin cleanup
Up and down Townsend Avenue in Lowell's Pawtucketville neighborhood, the mechanical rumble of water pumps was the only sound heard Wednesday.
With floodwaters filling his cellar, Albert Parent stood in his front yard, trying to calculate when he could move back into the house he had to evacuate three days earlier.
''Once we pump out the water, we'll have to take out everything that we had stored down there," said Parent, who added that he doesn't have flood insurance.
''I know right off that I'm going to need a new furnace and a hot water heater. We'll get an electrician to come in and check everything out. Then I'll have somebody clean the mess up. It's going to be a while."
Throughout his neighborhood and countless others northwest of Boston, homeowners were making similar assessments as they shifted into cleanup mode. Though rains drenched all of Eastern Massachusetts last weekend, communities along the Merrimack, Spicket, and Shawsheen rivers had a particularly deep puddle to swim out of.
In Methuen, Matthew A. Kraunelis, spokesman for Mayor William Manzi III, said the city estimated $1 million in damage, mostly related to roads, sewers, and public parks.
''The downtown was the hardest hit," he said. ''It's still our main concern, especially with the dam right there."
The damage in Lawrence is expected to cost ''millions and millions," Mayor Michael J. Sullivan said after touring the city with Governor Mitt Romney on Tuesday. Sullivan, who described Lawrence as being in ''the post-flood mode," said officials will survey damage around the city so they can estimate the size of a request for federal and state help.
More than 2,000 Lawrence residents lost power and were displaced from their homes, including City Councilwoman Grisel Silva. Fire Chief Peter C. Takvorian said each flooded home has to be looked over by plumbing and electrical inspectors before residents can return home.
Three schools on the banks of the Spicket River were the most affected in the district, said Superintendent Wilfredo T. Laboy. The Leonard School, which was ''completely saturated by 4 to 5 feet of water," will be closed indefinitely, Laboy said, and its 430 students placed in other schools.
Bob Ansin, developer of Monarch on the Merrimack condominiums, said he was pleased by how city officials prepared residents for the floods before the rain even began. ''I was very impressed, especially with the Fire Department," Ansin said.
Ansin said his building, which is still under renovations, got a little water in the basement but none in any of the new lofts. ''We designed it with the flood of '36 in mind," Ansin said, referring to the area's last great flood.
The news wasn't as good in parts of Lawrence's neighboring towns.
At the Market Basket at Shawsheen Plaza in Andover, seven maintenance workers piled 5,000 sandbags around the store to hold off the overflowing Shawsheen River, which runs just behind the property. At the dip in Route 114 in front of the North Andover Mall, water was waist-high on Tuesday, flooding the Market Basket,
Officials of local water systems all said drinking-water supplies were safe, but reports Monday of contaminated water in Tewksbury, which draws water from the Merrimack, set off panic among shoppers at the Market Basket.
That prompted Tewksbury officials to issue a statement saying the ''water quality at this time is very good, contrary to published reports."
In southern New Hampshire, Governor John Lynch Thursday toured flood damage in Hudson and Salem. Because of the flooding, Lynch postponed the state's participation in the National Bike/Walk to Work Day from last Friday to June 2.
Residents in Nashua returned Wednesday to Thoreau's Landing, a condominium complex where the Nashua River joins the Merrimack. The 100-unit complex was the only one in Nashua evacuated, a city official said.
The Hoodkroft Golf Course in Derry, N.H., was under water, said Town Administrator Russell Marcoux. Hardest-hit areas in Derry included those around the Taylor Mills and Beaver Lake, but only a few people evacuated.
In Lowell, officials said the hardest-hit neighborhoods besides Pawtucketville were Centralville and the Highlands, two areas closest to the Merrimack River.
At midweek, Pawtucketville seemed deserted except for utility crews and the few homeowners who had come back to begin cleanup.
Police cruisers and two soldiers from the Massachusetts National Guard halted traffic at the Rourke Bridge, blocking vehicles on Pawtucket Boulevard along the swollen Merrimack. A thin layer of mud covered the road.
Ivan Sullivan, of Townsend Avenue, had to return to remove debris from the property where his home and family business sit. Sullivan owns J.B. Potato Co., a produce distributorship. He said the flood destroyed about $6,000 worth of dry goods.
Lowell Fire Chief William Desrosiers said the city was helping property owners by setting up command centers in the three most affected neighborhoods. Each center has representatives from city agencies, including the health, electrical and wiring, fire, and building inspection departments.
The cooperation of town departments was crucial in Tewksbury, said Lewis Zediana, chief operating engineer for the water treatment plant. ''Getting through this whole situation would have been impossible without the help of the Fire Department," the Department of Public Works, and water department workers, ''who kept their eye on the process throughout the event," Zediana said.
Gazing at a computer screen that showed the Merrimack receding from its crest early in the week, Zediana said, ''We've been successfully dealing with this river since 1988."
Globe correspondent Joyce Pellino Crane and Globe reporter James Vaznis contributed to this article. 