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HOLLIDAYSBURG -- Less than a week after floodwaters washed over Hollidaysburg Borough neighborhoods, filling some basements with feet of water and others with sewage, concerned and frustrated residents implored local council members to act.
They spoke during public comment periods at a Thursday meeting, blaming flooding on runoff from housing developments, as well as an ongoing sanitary sewer project.
"Something needs to be done," said one Gaysport neighborhood resident, who claimed his basement was flooded with 53 inches of water due to runoff flowing downhill from near the Holliday Hills Development. "You could have floated a boat anywhere around my house."
Others, including Bedford Street resident Steve Albright, said the same.
"The problem is coming from up top," he said. "The more concrete and the more development that they do, it's putting water down here on us."
Those comments came at the same meeting in which council members granted conditional approval for the further development of the Holliday Hills area, which included plans to install both single- and multi-family homes.
The developer's engineer offered assurances that stormwater would be taken into account during the land development process.
Still, borough Mayor Joe Dodson also found fault with development designs, specifically retention ponds, which he said failed to hold water during recent rains. He said he witnessed the failure when he visited the area during a storm.
"I can tell you from first hand ... it was raining just like it was the last time, and there was nothing in that pond," Dodson said. "So they do not work."
He called on the developers' representatives to take necessary steps to make any possible improvements.
"Whatever you can do you have to do it right because these people can't take it anymore," he said.
The mayor's comments later came under attack by Councilwoman Joyce Lowe, who lives along Quince Court in the development.
Lowe pointed out that the mayor is not a stormwater expert, so his comments on whether or not retention ponds did their job may not be accurate.
"People like us cannot look at something like that and say it works or does not work," she said.
One thing could not be argued, flooding was an issue in the borough Aug. 3, when heavy rain saturated Hollidaysburg and the surrounding area.
Experts estimated that as much as three inches of rain fell within an hour and a half, requiring fire companies to close roads and to pump water from basements.
Chelsey Ergler, the area Intergovernmental Stormwater Committee coordinator, called Aug. 3's rainfall a "100-year storm."
"No stormwater sewer facility or retention ponds or basins can maintain or withold that amount of water," she said, seeming to suggest that flooding was inevitable. "It's just not in their design."
Borough Manager James Gehret said he, too, witnessed the flooding firsthand, but he could not determine its origins. Gehret said he plans to monitor flows during the next significant storm.
He was certain about one thing: "I did not encounter any flooding coming out of Holliday Hills," he said.
But Gaysport wasn't the only problem area during the storm.
A number of Jones Street residents expressed frustration -- at the meeting and in the days before -- because sewage backed up into their homes.
"It's not runoff water, it's not rain water, it was sewer," one man said at the meeting. "That's a big problem. Somebody needs to figure it out."
Their frustration was exacerbated by an ongoing sanitary sewer project, which is intended to remove stormwater from the sanitary system. The project requires homeowners to pay sometimes large fees to replace private pipes.
On Thursday, Gehret said the sewer backups on Jones Street likely had little to do with the sewer project and more to do with the amount of rain that fell in a short period of time.
The local sewer plant is equipped to deal with only a certain amount of water at a given time and, when levels exceed that amount, a system is in place to close off the flow, allowing for a combined sewer overflow near Sylvan Hills Golf Course.
The local plant receives sewer water from Hollidaysburg, as well as Frankstown and Logan townships, Gehret said.
"Frankstown township probably doesn't have the tightest system, so there probably was stormwater that was running into that pipe," he said.
During the recent storm, the golf course was completely flooded, meaning surcharged pipes could not overflow like they are supposed to, and their contents were trapped, Gehret said.
"That stuff couldn't get out of the pipe like it would normally do," he said. "When that plant starts to close that off and it starts to build up in that line, it comes back up."
And when it comes back up, it goes into basements, coming out of floor drains, Gehret said, guessing backups will not become regular occurrences.
"I don't think it's the norm," he said.
Mirror Staff Writer Sean Sauro is at 946-7535.