Coffee and Grilled Cheese

I had to post this article and some of the pictures that went along with it. First, the pictures are near a house I pass by everyday on Orchard Park Road. When I went out on Friday, I noticed the water was up really really high and near the backdoor of the house. Now the water has flooded the whole property.

The other portion of the article deals with where I used to live, Stony Road in Lancaster. The woman in the article, Heidi Marki nee Schneggenburger, is someone I used to go to Grammar School with in Bowmansville.

Record rain, warmth add up to a fast thaw that raises water levels in creeks — and basements
Updated: 12/28/08 07:31 AM

By Dan Herbeck and Michelle Kearns
NEWS STAFF REPORTERS

The white Christmas was a nice touch. But then came the record-setting rains and record high temperatures that flooded basements, closed roads and turned Western New York into one sloppy mess on Saturday.

And today’s weather could be a wind-swept nightmare for kickers and quarterbacks when the Buffalo Bills take on the New England Patriots in Ralph Wilson Stadium.

“This is an extremely unusual weather day,” Steve McLaughlin, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said on Saturday. “We set a record for rainfall and a record for high temperature, both on the same day.”

The temperature reached 63 degrees late Saturday night, the highest reading ever for a Dec. 27 in Buffalo, and the 1.21 inches of rainfall also was a record for the date.

As a result, many homeowners in the region spent the day pumping out and cleaning out their basements.

Police in many communities — including Orchard Park, Evans, West Seneca, Boston, Collins and Hamburg — reported that they were inundated with basement flooding calls in residential neighborhoods.

“The storm sewers are just full up, and the water is backing up into basements,” said Orchard Park Police Officer Leonard Govenettio. “[Town workers] are trying to keep the storm drains open.”

In Buffalo, complaints came from residents on the upper West Side as well as those driving on the Delaware Avenue S-curves near Forest Lawn.

The water level was dangerously high at a number of area creeks.

“Last week, we accumulated about 30 inches of snow. [Now] we’re seeing all that snow melt over a period of two days,” McLaughlin said. “And, you have all that rain. That is a very fast thaw.”

The heaviest of the rain was over by Saturday afternoon, but for homeowners like Bill Ernst of Orchard Park Road in Orchard Park, the damage had already been done.

Just as Ernst was preparing to set up a second sump pump in his flooded basement, he noticed the flood waters from nearby Cazenovia Creek were taking over his backyard.

“All of a sudden in the last half hour, it just broke loose and came this way,” Ernst said as he somberly watched the floodwaters rise above the benches on his picnic table.

A few houses farther down, near the Ridge Road intersection, muddy brown water had risen almost as high as a four-foot above-ground swimming pool.

West Seneca disaster coordinator John Gullo stopped by to offer sandbags and said he had been fielding general calls from people worrying about their basements. “It could challenge us,” Gullo said of the rain and melting snow.

In nearby West Seneca, flooding caused West Seneca Police Lt. David Szmania to close the southbound lane of Transit Road near Bullis Road.

“We’re adapting as we go along here,” he said. “Once the temperature drops, I hope that [flood waters] will stabilize and go back down.”

To Ernst, who lives near a location where his late grandparents began farming about 100 years ago, flooding was starting to seem more frequent.

Since he bought his house in 1983, water has flooded from the creek into the basement two other times, just in the last few years, once forcing him to replace the furnace, water heater, washer and dryer.

He blamed the flooding on new development taking up land that used to be able to absorb water like this. “The water just doesn’t have any place to go anymore,” he said.

Ernst was not alone in his misery. Erie County sheriff’s deputies received reports of flooded basements in Collins, Colden, Alden and Grand Island, said dispatcher Greg Hayden.

In Lancaster, Roy Schneggenburger, 74, reported that the brand new wood floor that his daughter, Heidi Marki, just had installed in the basement of her Stony Road home was ruined by flooding.

And state police said a number of roads had to be temporarily closed in the Southern Tier because of deep water and vehicles that became stuck on the roads.

“People need to be careful. If you see deep water in the road, don’t try to plow through it,” said trooper Thomas James at the Boston station.

In North Buffalo, the Delaware Avenue S-curves that wind their way through Delaware Park also had to be shut down by police for a few hours. Traffic was diverted from the curves after several vehicles stalled out in deep water and had to be towed away.

Meanwhile, on the city’s upper West Side, a Lexington Avenue resident complained of severe basement flooding in her neighborhood.

Not everyone was unhappy with the sudden and surprising warm-up.

Two professional dog walkers — Lana McCoy and Rose Sims — were walking Harley, a big black Labrador retriever, and Harper, a little brown dachshund on Forest Avenue near the S-curves.

Puddles were a problem, they said, but the warm spell was nice.

“Is this global warming? Hard to say,” said Bob Perry, a resident of nearby Bird Avenue. “This is freaky weather. It’s wonderful if you don’t have a flood in your basement.”

McLaughlin added there will be more freaky weather in store at the 1 p.m. Bills-Patriots game in Orchard Park.

This morning should start out as very balmy, with temperatures nearing 60 degrees, but around 10 a.m., a cold front is expected to move in and the temperature should move down sharply, possibly reaching the high 30s during the game.

Heavy winds are expected throughout the game, gusting at times to well over 40 miles per hour.

“It looks like this is going to be one of the windiest games ever played at the Ralph,” McLaughlin said. “There should be some roaring winds.”

Less extreme winter weather is expected Monday and Tuesday, with temperatures ranging from the high 20s into the low 40s, and not much snow.