17 people rescued, 4 by air, after ‘extreme flooding’ in one New Hampshire neighborhood
By Kelly O’Brien
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CONWAY, New Hampshire (WMUR) — Conway Fire has had a busy 24 hours, first dealing with trees down and power outages, but the danger escalated quickly Monday night as the Saco River left one neighborhood practically underwater.
Transvale Acres neighborhood is prone to flooding.
On Tuesday, Amy was among those living in the area who were cleaning out their homes and assessed the damage left over from Monday night.
She has lived in the neighborhood for the last seven years, but she said she has never had flooding like this.
Amy showed News 9 the extend of damage in the basement.
“We’ve pumped out all of this from here, but we are still halfway full, there is still 4 feet of water in there,” Amy said.
She opted to leave her home before the storm, but others in her neighborhood stayed.
Fire Chief Stephen Solomon said before a storm expected to bring as bad of flooding as Monday night, they had firefighters going door-to-door, warning people of the possibility of severe flooding and asking them to evacuate.
He said Monday night, it was worse than Tropical Storm Irene, and those who stayed in the neighborhood needed rescuing fast.
There were 17 people rescued. Four of them needed to be airlifted by a New Hampshire Army National Guard Black Hawk helicopter.
The chief also got extra help from swift water crews for secondary search and rescues of the neighborhood.
“Our team members first were getting really gassed last night, doing the rescues and then the conditions in the river were too extreme they were unable to actually continue using a motorized boat against the current,” Solomon said. “The Saco was running at 60,000 cubic feet per second which is extreme conditions.”
The chief said some homes are a total loss from the flooding.
The power has been cut to most of the properties because its unsafe with still too much water around.
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