Rely on Luck to Prevent Flooding
February 21, 2008

Major repairs to the Thruway, Interstate 84 and Route 17 will close all lanes on the Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day weekends. Traffic will be diverted to side roads throughout the region. Those in charge of the repair schedule have released assurances that they will be able to open a lane or two if necessary with only 24 hour's notice.

No, that would not be a good idea and it is not going to happen. The people who run the roads know that when heavy traffic is predictable, all lanes need to be open. Even though summer holidays and weekends offer prime weather to do needed repairs, work usually gets suspended to make way for the flood of traffic.
When it comes to floods, however, the people who schedule repairs have not learned the lessons that are so apparent with roads.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection is repairing the Rondout-West Branch Tunnel so it will not be able to carry the water it normally does for several weeks now. That means the DEP has to find an outlet for the rising water in the Cannonsville, Pepacton and Neversink reservoirs, which normally send more than 500 million gallons a day into the tunnel.

The only choice left is the Delaware River, which will have to handle an extra 138 million gallons a day as long as the reservoirs stay where they are today, about 99 percent of capacity.

That has some people downstream nervous. Knowing that the tunnel could be back in service within 24 hours might be comforting with enough notice about impending storms. And if there is not enough notice, which is likely given the challenge with weather predictions, floods could follow.

This is the worst time of year to have the tunnel closed. The ground is saturated, the snowpack will melt with warmer temperatures and the possibility of snow, rain or both is very likely.

Perhaps there was no option, no other time to do the repairs. Perhaps this winter will have a minimum of rain and snow. Perhaps the water will flow freely down the Delaware, causing nothing more than a bit of anxiety.
Still, wouldn't it make more sense to do what the road repair people do — close the tunnel at a time of year when it is not a crucial part of the water system or when the reservoirs are not overflowing? And wouldn't that be more than fair to the people who live along the river and in the lands that have seen so much damage from flooding in recent years?

There has been some progress recently in the area of flood-awareness. State and federal officials have installed monitors, revised plans and called summit meetings to let the people in the paths of these floods know that real action can be expected soon.

Now, let's hope that the tunnel repair goes smoothly and does not provide people along the Delaware another reason to doubt that anybody is listening.