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A major storm on Thursday, August 8th caused major flooding across Tompkins County including Lansing.  Town Attorney Guy Krogh noted last week that there were two feet of water at a blind turn on Asbury Road.  Early the next Friday morning Tompkins County issued a warning to avoid both Triphammer Road and East Shore Drive due to flooding.  That meant, among other things, that the town highway department and elected officials took plenty of phone calls from irate citizens.

"If we're the right people to blame at the time and it makes them feel better, we've got broad shoulders and we'll deal with it," Deputy Highway Superintendent Charlie 'Cricket' Purcell told the Lansing Town Board last week.  "We tried to address all of the issues, some legitimate concerns.  So we've already made some proper changes to insure the first line doesn't fail on them again in the future."

Purcell reported that his department took care of the most severe problems first, and have scaled down to the point whee he hoped the less severe problems would all be mitigated this week.  He said many of the complaints came because hundreds of people in the Town of Lansing with flooded property for the first time because between five and five and three quarter inches of rain was dumped in an unusually short period of time.   

"That was within three hours," Purcell said.  "A hundred-year storm may have five inches of rain over a twenty-four hour period.  It's a tough situation because everyone immediately wants every pipe that ran over with water doubled and tripled in size.  We could spend millions of dollars, but we do our best to increase the size any time we replace pipes.  It's just good practice."

Roads in Lansing belong to Tompkins County, New York State and the Town, with each entity responsible for maintaining its own property.

Flooded basements and overflowing ditches and culverts weren't the only problems Lansing suffered in the storm.  Parts of the town park had to be roped off for Lansing Harbor Festival because they were still flooded the Saturday after the storm. 

Damage was considerable the county, especially in Enfield.  On August 20 the Tompkins County Legislature voted to support local requests for New York State disaster funding to mitigate rain damage that county officials estimated exceeded $500,000.  $300,000 of that amount was the estimated cost of damage to county government infrastructure.  That amount does not qualify the county for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reimbursement, but is enough to be considered for state emergency funding.

"Most of the main parts are done," Purcell said.  "We've still got several small culvert projects.  As far as the Town of Lansing is concerned we're in overall pretty good shape.  I publicly apologize to people who are patiently waiting their small things to be taken care of.  We're slowly getting there."

Town Board members also took calls.  Supervisor Kathy Miller said the people who called her were understanding of the unusually severe nature of the storm.  She said that Town Engineer David Herrick told here a storm of this magnitude is so unusual that he was stymied as to how it could be handled.  Councilman Ed LaVigne commended the Highway Department for the work they did and continue to do.

"Esty Falls is back to being Esty Hill now," LaVigne said.  "Any time you have an act of nature like that you can't do everything.  The best thing is that no one got killed.  The rest can be fixed.  I understand a flooded basement is messy and awful and it's nerve-wracking."

Purcell said that rain water management is in pretty good shape in the town for most rain events.  He said the Highway Department upgrades culverts on an ongoing basis.

"It dates back to '96 when we had heavy snowfall, a lot of rain and a quick melt-off," he said.  "A lot of things have been upgraded from that point.  Overall we felt everything was in good shape.  We're set up to handle three inches in two hours pretty well.  The extra two and a half -- that's supposed to be unheard of, at least in our area."

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