Community Corner
Shelton Orders Mandatory Evacuation for Flooding at The Maples
Fire Department officials concerned that a broken floodgate at the Stevenson Dam could let go and raise water levels downstream by as much as three feet.
The Shelton Fire Department ordered a mandatory evacuation of The Maples Thursday afternoon as the Housatonic River overflowed its banks.
Assistant Fire Chief Paul Wilson said emergency officials were monitoring a wooden flood gate upstream at the Stevenson Dam. If the gate breaks, the water level on the Housatonic could quickly rise as much as three feet, he said.
Residents of The Maples, a clutch of riverside homes near Indian Well State Park, said the flooding Thursday was deeper than that from Tropical Storm Irene on Aug. 28.
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"There’s fish swimming in my basement now," said Brian Johnson, one of the residents.
"What are you going to do?" asked his neighbor, Fred Moran, whose house was still high and dry, although the street in front of it was not.
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Brian Connolly, another resident, said the water level began to rise at 6 a.m., and at 2 p.m. it was still rising. He and other neighbors began receiving recorded reverse 911 calls from the Shelton Police Department at 10 a.m. advising a voluntary evacuation.
Dan Schwartzman, who lives near the very end of the dead-end street where the flooding was deepest, paddled down the roadway to dry land in a kayak. He said the floodwaters were knee deep in the street at his house, and they had been rising at the rate of an inch every half-hour.
He and other residents said this was the third serious flood at The Maples this year.
"We’re prepared for it, but we shouldn’t have to be as prepared," Schwartzman said.
Wilson arrived with several other Shelton firefighters around 2:30 p.m. to assess the need for a mandatory evacuation.
He said if the wooden gate at the Stevenson Dam breaks, the water level would rise to a dangerous level at The Maples, which is about five miles downstream from the dam.
The consensus of the residents was to blame McCallum Enterprises, the owner of the Derby-Shelton Dam downstream from them, for the repeated flooding.
Resident Greg Mattei said McCallum Enterprises added a row of wooden planks across the top of the dam to increase the water level and make its hydroelectric power generators more profitable.
"A year before, the planks weren’t that high," he said.
After this year’s first flood in March, residents signed a petition blaming it partly on McCallum and asking that the dam owner protect their homes by releasing more water when the river approaches flood stage.
