Massachusetts residents living near vulnerable dam urged to evacuate immediately as state is hit with catastrophic flooding in Leominster
- Massachusetts was hit with catastrophic flooding after heavy rainfall Monday night, reaching over 11 inches as residents were urged to evacuate immediately.
- The storm caused severe damage, washing out roads, flooding homes and businesses, and forcing evacuations via hovercrafts and boats overnight
- Mayor Dean Mazzarella called the flooding ‘catastrophic’ and pushed for residents who live close to a vulnerable dam to evacuate
Massachusetts was hit with catastrophic flooding after heavy rainfall Monday night, reaching over 11 inches as residents near Barrett Park Pond in Leominster were urged to evacuate immediately.
The storm caused severe damage, washing out roads, flooding homes and businesses, and forcing evacuations throughout the night via hovercrafts and boats.
Leominster Mayor Dean Mazzarella called the flooding ‘catastrophic’ and pushed for residents who live close to a vulnerable dam to evacuate, according to the Boston Globe.
Mazzarella, said the area reached over 11 inches of rainfall with shocking footage showing deep floodwaters submerging cars and streaming down the streets at high currents.
‘That hit us within four and a half to five hours,’ he said to the Boston Globe. ‘That’s a lot of water.’
The rainfall began Monday, and by 8pm, there was already between 4 and 6 inches. Another three inches fell shortly after, reaching 7 to 9 inches just before 10pm.
The storm system alarmed forecasters last week when it strengthened from a Category 1 to a Category 5 hurricane overnight Thursday.
‘It affects every single section of the city,’ the Mayor said to the Boston Globe. ‘No one escaped this.’
Officials have responded to ‘dozens and dozens of wellbeing checks,’ he said. ‘It’s a miracle that people made it — that we haven’t had any fatalities.’
‘We found vehicles off the side of the road where the road had caved in,’ he said. ‘We’ve been extremely fortunate.’
Parts of lower Leominster – around 50 miles from Boston – were evacuated Tuesday as the flooding caused issues with the Barrett Park Dam.
‘We have put out a code red and notified everyone along that streambank, along that river base, from Barrett Park down to the center to evacuate,’ Mazzarella said.
‘That park pond is served by many water resources. The safest thing right now is to evacuate people from those homes should something happen to that dam.’
Residents living ‘in low-lying areas of the Fall Broom tributary to Fall Brook along Central Street, Fall Brook, and the North Nashua River in Leominster, should immediately evacuate and safely leave the area,’ the City of Leominster said.
Photos show road crews assessing a sinkhole on Chestnut Street in Leominster, Massachusetts, on Tuesday.
‘Everything’s just one big lake,’ Mazzarella said on Monday. ‘Find a high spot somewhere. Find a high spot and stay there until this is over.’
The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) said it would be sending thousands of sandbags to Leominster.
‘MEMA staff have been on-scene in #Leominster since last night supporting the local flood response & coordinating requests for assistance, including 3,000 sandbags, additional shelter staff, traffic sign boards & shelter equipment to support residents with disabilities,’ the agency tweeted Tuesday morning.
Massachusetts’s Governor Maura Healey also issued emergency boat rescue and response teams to the city.
‘My heart goes out to residents and public safety officials in Leominster and other communities experiencing catastrophic flooding tonight,’ she posted on X (formerly Twitter).
Similarly alarming scenes can be seen in footage from Cumberland, Rhode Island, as residents were also forced from their homes amid torrential waist-high floodwaters.
One person who shared footage of the flash flooding said they ‘lived here for 20 years and it’s never flooded this bad.’
In another image shared to social media, a huge sinkhole had opened up in the town of 40,000 that one woman said she was lucky not to drift into due to the high currents.
Further disruption is expected through the week, worsening as the storm makes its forecast northward turn midweek.
With the range of the system still uncertain, regions from Bermuda all the way up to Atlantic Canada are on alert.
Amid the uncertainty over the storm’s path, computer generated models in recent days have shown the storm potentially slamming into major cities including New York City and Boston, while it also has the potential to turn back to the Atlantic.
Similarly comforting models have been tragically wrong in the past, however. In 2017, meteorologists predicted Hurricane Irma would turn towards the ocean, before it battered Florida’s Gulf Coast and led to at least 92 deaths.
The ‘eyewall replacement cycle’ that is being seen in Hurricane Lee could cause widespread damage, however the timing of the replacement is key. The process saved many Florida residents last month when Hurricane Idalia struck Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Although the hurricane brought significant damage and led to at least two deaths, experts cautioned that the damage could have been far worse as the hurricane turned and slowed thanks to the natural phenomenon.
However, the timing of the replacement could see it strengthen past previous levels described by Ryan Maue, a meteorologist and former chief scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as: ‘Like a figure skater pulling in her arms versus holding her arms out, the hurricane spins with a lot more energy, power, and ferocity when it has a tighter eye.’
