January 29, 2010
 
Danis Park Road floods again
By GREG KWASNIK

GOFFSTOWN - Fifty degree temperatures and more than an inch of rainfall on Jan. 25 flooded parts of Danis Park Road in Goffstown.

The low-lying road along the Piscataquog River remained open throughout the day, though a foot of standing water made travel through the area hazardous.

“The people who live there have become accustomed to that area flooding,” said Police Chief Patrick Sullivan. “We put cones out to warn people and Highway pumped it out this morning.”

The day after the storm, several large puddles remained where police had placed their warning cones. There were no reports of homes flooded along the road, where many houses are built on top of raised basements, with front doorways 10 or more feet above the ground.

Yet the flooding during Monday’s storm was not caused by the Piscataquog River itself, which peaked 2.5 feet short of flood stage, according to the National Weather Service.

In an area that has been inundated by the 2006 Mother’s Day flood and high-water events over the last few years, simple gravity was to blame.

Sullivan said the culprit was storm runoff that ran down the steep, paved road and pooled at the bottom.

“It’s at the bottom of the hill,” Sullivan said. “The water has no place to go on the pavement so it ends up at the bottom of the road.”

Poor drainage has been a problem on several roads paralleling the Piscataquog River. This fall, Goffstown took measures to fix the problem with the $700,000 South Mast Street Drainage Improvements Project.

But for residents of Danis Park Road, drainage improvements will have to wait. The South Mast Street project, which will install an eco-friendly drainage system to funnel storm runoff into Glen Lake, focuses on an area several miles upstream from Danis Park Road.