From the archives: In deep water as LI thaws out

This story was originally published in Newsday on February 23, 2003.

Heavy rains, warmer temperatures and melting snow left parts of Long Island a soggy, flooded mess yesterday - causing many to wonder where all the water would go.

As temperatures reached the lower 40s during the day, a flood watch remained in effect throughout last night, as some Suffolk and Nassau roadways turned into rivers and basements into wading pools.

Claude Fling of Bay Shore said water at least 7 inches deep had flooded the parking lot of the apartment complex where he lives near the corner of Fourth Avenue and Cherry Street. "It's pretty serious," he said. "It's over your ankle. That's for sure."

Charlie Parker, a Nassau fire communications supervisor, said his office received calls ranging from sparking power lines to waterlogged streets. "A lady in North Lawrence called saying the water was up to her knees," he said. "We said, 'What, in your basement?' She said, 'No, in the street.'"

It was the same in other Long Island locales, where crews worked to keep storm drains clear of snow from last week's blizzard, motorists slowly navigated through partially submerged streets and pedestrians tried to keep their footing.

"The water has no place to go with the ground being frozen and the snow in the gutter lines of the street," said Gil Hanse, emergency preparedness director for the Town of Babylon. "We have crews out cleaning gutter lines ... so that the water can run through the drains, and that's probably all we can do over the next 24 hours."

The National Weather Service forecast between 1 1/2 and 2 inches of rainfall this weekend, the result of a strong area of low pressure in the Kentucky-Tennessee region moving to the Northeast, meteorologist Scott Reynolds said yesterday. "The snow can only hold so much of this rain," Reynolds said.

That's what crews were finding in the Town of Riverhead, where they were out yesterday posting roadside flood warning signs near collecting puddles, and monitoring the areas prone to flooding, Highway Superintendent Mark Kwasna said.

"We still have a lot of farm fields in the town," he said. ". . . The ground is frozen. . . . Once there's so much water on the farm fields, it can't hold any more and it runs into the roads."

The rain is expected to taper off this afternoon, followed by mostly cloudy skies and colder temperatures. Highs are expected to be in the mid-40s, with winds ranging from 15 mph to 25 mph, gusting to about 40 mph. The forecast calls for mostly cloudy skies tomorrow, with lows in the 20s and highs near 40, with a chance of rain or snow in the afternoon.

Staff writers Alfonso A. Castillo and Theresa Vargas contributed to this story.