ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (WKBW) — One area that was the bull's eye from our historic snow storm, is now dealing with flooding problems. Orchard Park received nearly 80 inches of snow which has been gradually melting over the last week.
Between the rain and snow melt, it is creating a mess for homeowners in Orchard Park.
Flood water can be seen spanning the front yard's and driveway's of homeowners on South Abbott Road. Some of the front lawns looked more like a creek.
"The rain's not helping either," Michael Wienkelnan, an Orchard Park homeowner said.
The flood water has grown so much, it is seeping into home like Wienkelnan's.
"Getting lots of water in the basement," he said.
Wienkelnan showed 7 News' Kristen Mirand his flooded basement which he has been able to keep up with.
"If I didn't do what I've been doing here, I'd probably be up to here," he said, pointing to a basement post.
Thankfully, he said, the water is not nearly as bad as the flooding he dealt with after the 2014 snow storm, the only other time his basement flooded. He said the water started filling up on Monday.
"I was up all Monday night sucking up water trying to keep ahead of it. I won the battle but I didn't win the war," he explained.
Wienkelnan said he is even running three sump pumps.
"They haven't shut off in two days," he said.
These neighbors on South Abbott now want answers. So 7 News reached out to the town's public works department to see what can be done about this, but the department said since the county owns this road, that department takes responsibility.
"We're doing as much as we can with the resources we have a lot times it's unfortunately time that needs to take place," William Geary, Commissioner of the Erie County Department of Publics Works, said.
Geary said other areas saw flooding like Hamburg and West Seneca. He said hopefully with the temperature dropping, the flooding subsides too. He said the flooding is unusual for this area, but between the ditches and storm pipes, they are at capacity causing the flooding.
"Unfortunately for the homeowners though we just have to allow this water to melt off get through and get out to the discharge points." Geary said.
Although this does not happen too often, Geary said there is one thing homeowners could do to prevent this from happening.
"In these rare cases, hopefully they're very rare, but water backing up into your basement, if you have a check valve that would prevent it," he said.
Meantime, Wienkelnan hopes the rain tapers off as the clean up for him and his family continues.
"Just sucking water up and hoping nothing gets damaged," he said.
