Temporary road closed on Belfield Drive in Johnston

JOHNSTON, R.I. (WLNE) — The temporary access road connecting the flooded Belfield Drive in Johnston to Interstate 295 came down Friday night, after a one-week extension.

ABC 6 News crews saw water levels still high in the neighborhood as residents look to the mayor for answers.

It’s been more than a month since Belfield Drive in Johnston was cut off from the rest of the community due to severe flooding.

Residents were given a lifeline in the form of an emergency road to allow emergency vehicles in and out of the neighborhood.

Now, the road is coming down, leaving community members up a creek without a paddle.

‘We feel like we’re being abandoned again,” resident Kirstin Hatzell said. “Like, ‘We’ve made an option for you, which was the access road. But you guys can’t use it. But now we’re taking it down. And now you have to fend for yourselves.” 

Hatzell and her boyfriend bought a home onthe roadless than two years ago.

“My neighbors across the street, who have been there their entire lives, know the exact situation,” she said. “And told us – unfortunately after we had already closed and moved in – ‘You guys are living in a swamp, so good luck!'” 

Now they’re staying with family and asking how the home could even be sold when this level of flooding was a known issue.

“If our homes were in a situation where buyouts were even in play, how was my home able to be sold to me,” Hatzell said. “Why was it not addressed prior to us buying?”

There is some hope in the form of that home buyout option, something Johnston’s mayor is pursuing with the federal government.

But he was unavailable to be reached Friday, a spokeswoman in his office said the town doesn’t know the timeline for a buyout at this point.

“Communication is the biggest problem,” Hatzell said. “It is concerning why no one has reached out to us. And it’s not like there’s 500 of us, there’s about seven houses affected by this. That means seven phone calls someone would have to make.”

There is no plan for another extension on the temporary road.

The mayor’s office said emergency crews will continue to help residents get where they need to go.

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