North Providence residents deal with water damage from rainstorms

February 17, 2016 6:33 pm

By Ana Bottary

abottary@abc6.com

For year people on Eliot Avenue in North Providence have been dealing with damage caused by water following rainstorms.

The Town Council was under the impression the street would finally receive a 200 thousand dollar grant, but Mayor Lombardi is giving that money to another neighborhood that he says has bigger problems.

Homeowner Diane Coccia says her home has been destroyed over the years by water damage. She says for the past decade, her yard floods outside, and ABC6 News covered the problem back in December of 2014.

"Instead of the water going down the drain and into the pipe down Eliot, it comes into my yard and my house. Whatever is outside, I get," explains Coccia.

North Providence Town Councilor Kristen Caranzaro says a solution was in sight. The cost of the project to fix the problem is about 350 thousand dollars. The Town Council put in a request for the money with the General Assembly in April.

"We were told that 200 thousand dollars was approved in the 2015 budget for the Eliot Avenue project," says Catanzaro.

But when she looked at the grant agreement she noticed the project title was not for Eliot Avenue.

"What I found out was that it wasn’t a priority of the Mayor’s, the priority was to fund a different project… the grant application for another project on Winona Street," says Catanzaro.

Mayor Charles Lombardi says he wasn’t aware the money was ever slated to go twards projects on Eliot Street.

"I think it became a little bit–not through this office–a little bit of a political football with the council–some of the council–and through the general assembly. So, the only thing I can tell you at this point is that we are continually addressing both the Eliot Avenue and the Brook and Winona street flooding problems," said Lombardi.

The mayor says the storm water flows from Rhode Island College down to a catch basin at Brook and Winona Streets, and that needs to be fixed first.

As for Eliot Street, he says that about two weeks ago, they did discover a four-foot basin covered in grass. Since then, the DPW has cleared it, and hope it will aid the flooding issue. They are waiting for the next rainstorm to assess the issues.