Thuh-WHUMP!
What the hell!?
PT glanced at the speedometer -- 25 mph. What the hell was that? PT was headed up Prospect Avenue from the five-points, and bellied out near the Evergreen School teachers' parking lot.
It was so unexpected that PT stopped the car, grabbed the camera and went for a look-see.
The 'dip' in the street near Prospect and Carnegie
The dip was formed by a crease that ran from one side of the street to the other. It was then that PT noticed the gap in the sidewalk across the street from the school.
Gap in the sidewalk on northerly side of the street
Closeup of the gap, nearly 6 inches
Now, you know if this were YOUR sidewalk, you would have been written up before it got to this point. What gives? Talking with three young men polishing a car in front of one of them's home, PT asked about the gap. How long had it been there? Had they noticed any recent change?
There had always been some gap they said, but when they saw me using a ruler to measure the depth, they opined that it had changed over time. One, a student at PHS, volunteered that he habitually trips on it at night returning from visiting an elderly church member who lives around the corner.
PT suspected this was the point where Plainfield's enormous underground floodwater diversion storm sewer crosses Prospect to wend its way under Plainfield High School and emerge behind the Stelle Avenue parking lot, thence to flow through Cedar Brook Park.
Section of the DPW mailer showing approximate flood zones in blue
(Click to enlarge)
The tax maps confirmed that this is the point where the storm sewer crosses Prospect Avenue.
Detail from tax maps, showing storm sewer right-of-way in blue
(Click to enlarge)
So, what IS going on here? Is the soil around the rigid storm sewer subsiding? Why? Could this also account for such things as the tilt of the tree at the rear of the photo below?
Notice the tilted tree at the rear of this photo
On the other side of the street, the green patch veering rightward toward the rear of the photo seems to be over the storm sewer as it heads toward PHS.
View toward PHS, green patch on right indicates storm sewer path
Shouldn't the city fix the sidewalk before it gets sued? Doesn't seem to PT that it's the property owner's fault. Shouldn't the city fix the roadway -- you can see obvious signs of patching -- before someone breaks an axle?
That would probably require an engineering study to correctly analyze and assess what's going on here.
And then what about checking out the rest of the storm sewer, which PT is told was put in place by the Army Corps of Engineers after the disastrous 1973 flood -- in which the entire area on the DPW map that slashes from behind the Sears store on Route 22 southwestward to Cedar Brook Park was under water.
Of course, the City COULD just ignore it.
-- Dan Damon
P.S. -- You may also want to check out the story about the Administration's bumbling of the renewal of the FEMA Flood Maps last September ("Administration: The Dog Ate My Homework")
View today's CLIPS here. Not getting your own CLIPS email daily? Click here to subscribe.
ARCHIVED POSTS OF PLAINFIELD TODAY FROM 11/03/2005 THROUGH 12/31/2006 ARE AT
http://plainfieldtoday.blogspot.com/
http://plainfieldtoday.blogspot.com/
Posts
4 comments:
I believe that underground drain was put through there well before the 1973 flooding. Some people even blamed the flooding on the fact that the stream was previously enclosed. I think the high school was opened in 1970, which would mean the drain was already enclosed at 1973, but I could be wrong. Have been once or twice before.
The subsidance you observed has been developing slowly over time. It appears to be adjacent to the tunnel, and not the tunnel collapsing. I believe it was built in 1937, and I wonder why now it has started to subside.By the way, that sewer tunnel goes not only to Terrill Rd., but branches off down North Ave. and takes the overflow from Cook pond. I have walked the entire length, and it is a marvel that few people are aware of in the city.
W. Garrett
Yes, the City should fix things like that, but it rarely happens because the DPW employees, not to mention the Inspections Dept. and various other departments are incompetent and usually just interested in their job benefits and their pecking order. This will continue to plague us until Plainfield gets rid of Civil Service.
The drainage work was done well before the 1973 flood. There was a small area enclosed when PHS was built, but that was in the late 1960's at the school site, and not on Prospect or that area. When the High School first opened, I worked at the Fire Department and we referred to the new building as PHS70, and the old building as PHS16.
Post a Comment