THE BIGGEST "FLOOD"

[berwynson]

Bungalows and basements are co-existent. Basements and attics are great to have; I sorely missed them while away from Berwyn.

Heavy rains, unfortunately, often caused street drains (sewers) to become overloaded, thereby causing the distasteful basement flooding; this happened a lot in our neighborhood, but I can't speak for the rest of Berwyn. Our neighbor always denied getting water in his basement, though he could always be seen throwing boxes of junk out after we flooded!

Anyhow, one year there was an especially bad summer storm, lightning knocked out the transformer in the center of the block, which fed power to the entire square block. People who HAD pumps could not pump out their basements. I believe the power was out at least 2 days; a crew brought in a new transformer, and installed it after removing the destroyed unit. I was about 10, and of course hung around in the alley, as close as possible, so as not to miss any details! The one thing I recall vividly was the size of the transformer. It was as tall as I was!

Have any improvements been added to eliminate or reduce the flooding, since I left? Lots of perceived "heirlooms" fell victim to those nasty floods!   Berwynson

[OakParkSpartan]

If  you have a sump, there is a water powered backup you can have  installed.  Check  out the this old house site.

We also spent $30 million or so on street and sewer improvements a few years back.

[treeguy]

The previous owners of my house installed a check valve and pump at the point where my sewage pipe meets the common street sewer.  The pump is on the main house electricity, so there is no redundancy there.  I don't know how effective it is, but I haven't had poop in my basement in my 18 months here.