By Mary Walton
On Wednesday afternoon, Mike Solebello of Sawbucks Contracting was pumping out his eighth basement – mostly in the area of Broadway and Abbott Avenue.
Solebello said he had 10 or 15 more jobs waiting and he was still getting calls from people on streets near Fletcher Lake.
Four feet of water was typical, he said.
In some basements that were pumped out on Tuesday, water had seeped back in by Wednesday.
The signs of severe flooding were apparent along the eastern end of Broadway. Some lawns looked like yard sales; residents had pulled out their possessions – lawn chairs, bicycles, storage bins, old mattresses and other things that had been stored in their basements – and spread them out to dry.
Mary Ellen Tellefsen was especially unfortunate. She and her husband, Eric, live in a basement apartment at the Sea Spray Inn, which they own, and which had already flooded several times this summer. This time was by far the worst.
After the deluge of Hurricane Sandy, she said, there was nothing salvageable in the couple’s apartment. She said she lost all her clothing except what was in her car.
“I’ve shed the tears. I’ll shed some more. All we can do is accept it and move on,” she said.
Thank you so much for this blog! I just wanted to say that we were amazingly lucky in that our house on Broadway on the south side between Central and Pilgrim Pathway did not have water in the basement. I hope others had the same luck!
And I am so sorry for the folks who have lost so much!
This makes me so sad. My heart breaks for everyone who is suffering.