CBS2 Exclusive: LI Residents Say Costly Construction Has Not Fixed Grand Canal Flooding
ISLIP, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- Just off the Great South Bay, the Grand Canal is Oakdale has been flooding for decades.
A fix is finally in the works for homeowners dealing with constant street flooding, but now it's the fix that may need fixing, CBS2's Jennifer McLogan reports.
"From the banging, everything is shifting," resident Janet Waldhof said.
For Waldhof and her neighbors, it's been a long year on Middlesex Avenue in Oakdale, where chronic flooding had some homeowners begging for help from the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Town of Islip.
Money was secured last May – a year ago – and a private contractor moved in heavy equipment to building a new road, law new drainage pipes and dig a swale near the Grand Canal.
"It didn't work out, according to the pictures," Waldhof said.
Documented in a series of photos, Middlesex Avenue still flooded following the fix after a recent full moon, high tide and rainstorm.
Waldhof called in an engineer, who she says discovered recent cracks in her walls, tiles, near her swimming pool and garage.
"My concern is my cesspool and my foundation," she said.
The bulldozers, pavers, grinders, rollers and jackhammering vibrations may have cracked what she can't see below the surface.
While on the surface, the topsoil filled with rocks the contractor dumped on her lawn looks suspicious to Waldhof.
"Where did they get this fill? Has it been tested?" she asked. "I have contacted the supervisor, contacted the Department of Public Works."
"Ten-wheel asphalt trucks filled with asphalt followed it up the driveway with no protection on the cement. The cement cracked," another woman said.
The woman says it's a comedy of errors at her expense.
"They brought the bulldozer up on my lawn that I had just paid $1,200 for soil, because they said they weren't giving us anymore," she said.
McLogan asked if the Town of Islip Supervisor had anything to say on the matter.
"We certainly take every complaint seriously here in the Town of Islip, and we will address each and every one of them," spokesperson Caroline Smith said.
Officials say a drainage project of this magnitude is complicated by the fact it is right on the water, but say they will be meeting with engineers and contractors to go over the complaints within the next 24 hours.
The Town of Islip has been working for more than a decade to resolve the flooding issues in Great South Bay communities.
