Tuesday, December 09, 2014

Nor'Easter Brings More Flooding To Gowanus (And Lightstone Group Development)

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Gowanus Canal at the Carroll Street Bridge just past high tide today
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Looking at the Union Street Bridge
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Gowanus Canal coming close to breaching its banks at noon today 
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End of 2nd Street near the canal
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At 3rd Street Bridge.  Whole Foods parking lot
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Lightstone Group's development on the banks of the Gowanus Canal at 363-365 Bond Street
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water rising at Lightstone Group's  363 Bond Street site
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Lighststone site at 365 Bond Street.  Water surrounds the foundation of the building
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Lighstone site at 365 Bond Street.

Today's Nor'Easter has drenched the area and brought more flooding to the Gowanus area. I ventured out with an umbrella and my camera about noon today in the pouring rain to take a walk across the Gowanus Canal.
It was just past high tide, and in some areas, the water was starting to come over the banks of the canal.

The site of Lightstone Group's 700 unit rental development at 363-365 Bond Street in particular seemed to be flooded. As crews were continuing to work on the site through the heavy downpour, water from the canal was surrounding the foundation of the building at the 365 Bond Street site near Second Street. It actually seemed as though there was a moat around it.
I talked to a worker who was taking a cigarette break nearby, who confirmed that the water was rising on the site. "They have to figure out what to do," he told me,"because that canal is dangerous."


As usual, there was flooding at the 3rd Street Bridge near Whole Foods.  However, the water does not come from the Gowanus, but pools in that location as rainwater flows down the street from the higher point at Smith Street

Since the rain is supposed to continue all through the day, flooding will probably be worse tonight at 11:30 PM tonight as high tide returns.

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Flooding at Third Street Bridge
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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not sure I care if the Lightstone property floods or not so long as the rain does sit on Bond Street and effect the existing neighborhood up hill on the west side of Bond.

It's also interesting to observe how effective the "Green Infrastructure" on Carroll St up hill from Bond is under there condition--basically ineffective. Just don't see how those things do anything during the rain storms that drive sewage out into the canal.

Anonymous said...

The flooding at the Lightstone site looks pretty bad. If that is really canal water, they have some big problems to figure out. I guess that they will be building a retaining wall as part of the esplanade. They had better get going on that. Whole Foods looks like it is fairing much better, that high water is no where near breaching that wall. The city also has to sort out the drainage for the area around the 3rd street bridge; that is always a problem.

Hooplehead said...

Is that canal water and if it is, is it safe for the workers to be onsite?

Katia said...

The water on the Lightstone site is most definitely canal water. The worker I talked to confirmed it.

As indicated, the water at the 3rd Street bridge was rainwater that had pooled at the lowest point between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens.

Jim said...

DIdn't see any flooding on 3rd or on Bond tonight. Also, the sky didn't fall.

Anonymous said...

Hopefully the lightstone project will be destroyed.
Anyway. Are those solar panels on the Whole Foods parking lot canopies?

Anonymous said...

remarkably judging from the pics the canal itself doesn't look that bad considering the amount of rain.. However, this lighstone project should have finished with a retaining wall and site drainage improvements before putting up buildings whether we want it there or not..

Anonymous said...

Wonder why the city didn't require that the drainage system be built before the buildings? You would think that would be first.

Was wondering if the proposed drainage system would be effective during high tide. Might the outlet they plan to make to dump water into the canal be blocked by the high tide?

Does anyone have any confidence that this project, even with a drainage system built, will not make for more flooding problems all around?