Meriden Dodges a Bullet in End-of-Week Rainstorm

After Monday’s rainfall caused flooding that closed streets and deluged basements throughout the city, flood warnings for Thursday and Friday had many expecting a repeat affair.

But Meriden emerged unscathed from the late Thursday rainfall that extended just past noon Friday.

“Thankfully the rain was not as hard as originally expected so we did not have any flooding issues today,” Meriden Public Works Director Bob Bass said late Friday morning.

National Weather Service warnings for rainfall and flooding throughout the state prompted Gov. Dannel Malloy to open an emergency operations center at 11 p.m. Thursday, but the highest rainfall received by noon Friday was just 2.1 inches in Danbury.

The immediate area only received about a half-inch of total rainfall, with .6 inches recorded in Wallingford, according to the CT Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

Some nearby rivers were at flood levels at noon Friday were expected to continue to rise through Sunday as they collected runoff water. In Middletown, the Connecticut River was two inches over its flood stage at noon, and expected to rise another foot by Sunday morning, according to the Department.

The Quinnipiac River, which runs through South Meriden and feeds Hanover Pond, was not expected to exceed flood levels by Friday afternoon. Measurements in Southington and Wallingford, reported at noon, were each well under flood levels.

Though downtown Meriden has historically been a flood center, having experienced eight of what City Manager Lawrence Kendzior often calls "100-year floods" in just the last 70 years, that area was relatively dry even on Monday.

"I think we have to attribute our limited flooding to our efforts to keep the existing drainage systems in our trouble spots clean and the placement of trash racks in front of some of the inlet pipes to reduce debris from entering the storm drains which can help increase flooding," Bass said of his department's efforts.