Islip Town Plans Drainage For Flood-Prone Roads

 This will hopefully be the last spring Hauppauge residents on Canterbury Drive and Dexter Court fear flooding of their streets and homes.

Rich Baker, Town of Islip’s commissioner of Public Works, said a stormwater drainage system is ready to be installed on Canterbury Court and Dexter Drive as soon as the weather breaks, in effort to solve the neighborhood’s recurring flooding problem.

“We intend to make it safe, drivable and make sure emergency vehicles can get down the road in all weather,” Baker said. 

The residential area located between Town of Islip’s Hidden Pond Park and the Hamlet Wind Watch Golf Course and Country Club first came to the commissioner’s attention during the heavy rains of spring 2010. 

“People were panicking because the road was flooding. We had to go in with tank trucks and pumps. We had to go in for a solid month to pump water from Canterbury to the sump,” Baker said.

His department employees assured him that flooding of Canterbury Drive and Dexter Court has occurred several times over the past decades, often when winter’s melting snow combines with heavy rains. 

“I know first hand how people felt when they have water in their basement or water in their yards. Its something that you live on an Island with a high water table and heavy rains, its an unfortunate thing people have to put up with,” the commissioner said, explaining he has dealt with flooding in his Bayside home a few times in recent years.

His experience has made installing drainage on Canterbury Drive and Dexter Court his No. 1 priority this spring. 

The roadway is marked with paint and flags, as plans call for a storm drains to carry water from Canterbury Drive south to Dexter, then lay a storm drain line down Dexter to Terry Road where the water will be directed into the Sump opposite the entrance of Hidden Pond Park.  Baker estimated the total costs to the town to be between $50,000 to $60,000,  as much of the labor will be done by town employees.

On Monday, the commissioner and road crews were on site as a consultant bored test holes to verify how deep it was safe to dig. Baker said many utilities companies including electric, gas, water mains and phone cables run through the ground in the area.

Work is scheduled to begin this spring, as soon as the ground thaws provided this spring doesn’t bring the same heavy work-halting rains of 2010.  Baker warned a late winter storm, heavy spring rains or other damaging storms could further delay work.

For the residents of Canterbury Drive and Dexter court who might be wondering why a decades old problem has taken a year of planning to tackle. Baker had an answer.

“The reason it takes so long is we want to make sure the solution is the right solution. We don’t want to spend a lot of money and find out it doesn’t work. A lot of planning, engineering work and people were involved. We all seem to think this will be the right way to eliminate the problem,” he said.