Orienta, Mamaroneck and floods--Should we worry?

[rubygreta]

15 Jones Street could be in a flood zone, while 16 Jones Street is not. It's called elevation. Check the flood maps.

[KensingtonPark]

Very hard to say without knowing the circumstances of the house. I would ask the following questions:

• Was the house water intrusion-free in the basement in the prior five years?
• Does the house have a backup generator?
• Does the house have a sump pump that has been recently upgraded?
• Is the house higher in elevation than most of the houses in the neighborhood?

If so, I would probably consider it. I would still insist on an inspection of the drainage system for the house (french drains, water diversion systems, dry well, etc.) and the basement for evidence of prior water intrusion.

[hartsie]

Originally Posted by eternal_learner

Dear KensingtonPark,

Thank you for your response. The remedial measures done could include working sum pumps and may be check valve in the sewer preventing the backup. However, if you have a 2ft deep river in the street I am not sure that the sum pumps help. Do you know of more efficient measures to protect the basement? Brick wall around the basement entrance? Sand bags around? Additional sum pumps?

Thanks.

I live on a hill in Mamaroneck, and my basement, with a sump pump and water catchment basins under my yard, took on water during Ida, because the rain fell so hard and so fast that my yard became a river, both because of the volume of water falling from the sky and the stormwater sewers that actually backed up onto my front lawn. My spouse and I were outside bailing out our basement window in the pouring rain, fruitlessly trying to keep it from flooding into our basement as water bubbled up from the drain at the bottom of the egress window because there was no where for the water to go below ground. There were houses near me on the bottom of the hill that had 6+ feet of water in their basement--the sandbags that they had put there did nothing to keep the water out, because it was just too much and the sandbags were overwhelmed.

Which is all to say that I don't think there was anything that could be done to have kept the water from basements during Ida--the volume of water that fell in such a short time meant that there was nowhere underground for the water to go, so it all just kept going up and up--and if your house was located somewhere that water pooled and rose, you were out of luck.

I don't mean to be so doom and gloom, but the aftermath of Ida for this whole area was devastating, and another storm like that will likely mean your basement (and mine, and all of our neighbors) will flood again. There's also the issue of both the Mamaroneck River and the Sheldrake River running through/under the Village of Mamaroneck which contributed to the massive flooding of the Village in Ida, and which the US Army Corp of Engineers has noted in a January 2022 fact sheet remain high flood risks.

I don't want to dissuade you from buying the house if you have your heart set on it, but the claims of the owners that the reason the basement flooded was because of malfunctioning sump pumps is bunk.