By Brendan Connolly
With a three-day deluge of water unable to find room in already over-saturated ground, public works and fire crews across Cape Ann were still wrestling yesterday with flooding and other standing water problems.
Tara Montessori School, located at 62 School St. in the rear of the Sacred Heart Church Parish Hall in Manchester, reportedly had 2 to 3 inches of standing water distributed throughout six too eight classrooms, said Manchester Fire Department Lt. Jim Doucette.
The problem required multiple pumps, Doucette said.
A recording made by Tara Montessori administrators yesterday afternoon told callers only that the school was closed Tuesday due to "severe flooding" over the weekend. The school is a private early-childhood through kindergarten program.
Doucette also said there was also 5 to 6 inches of water in the church's rectory, while a home on Bridge Street, he said, had 6 to 8 inches in its basement.
"We've been pumping basements pretty regularly since Sunday," Doucette said yesterday.
Manchester crews were also called to Mill Street yesterday, Doucette continued, because water was rushing out of a conduit in the street. Luckily, he said, there were no wires and it didn't pose a threat.
Officials and work crews in Gloucester and other Cape Ann communities were also kept busy right through yesterday morning.
"We had isolated neighborhood flooding," said Mike Hale, Gloucester's director of Public Works. "It was just traditional storm flooding, but we are still cleaning up debris from the storm two weeks ago."
That Feb. 25 rain and windstorm left a trail of damage in its wake throughout Gloucester, Rockport, Manchester and Essex.
"Our problem," Hale continued, "is the desperate need we have to fix the potholes of East Gloucester and the Back Shore."
There were concerns about Gloucester's sewer systems and the system's ability to handle the nearly 50 million gallons of water that passed through the plant over the 48-hour period, Hale said. But he said there were no apparent discharges.
"We're getting better at managing big events," he said. "And it's starting to show."
More than 7 inches of rain fell over the weekend during the slow-moving nor'easter — the largest amount of rainfall from one storm for the area since Mother's Day 2006, which produced almost 13 inches of precipitation.
But not all Cape Ann communities took equal hits.
"Essex was uneventful," said Mike Galli, that town's assistant public works director. Essex had "a few flooded streets," he continued, but no tree damage or obtrusions to roadways.
The storm, however, brought a business boom of sorts in some circles.
An associate at the Building Center in Essex said the store had a real rush on sump pumps and sand bags.
But yesterday, many officials and residents were cleaning up, and breathing sighs of relief.
"We're pretty well," said Essex Police Chief Peter G. Silva. "We're just waiting for the water to recede."
Brendan Connolly can be reached at 978-283-7000, or gt_reporter@gloucestertimes.com.
