Two years later, Catonsville still reckoning with flooding aftermath
"'Steve, I don't know what's gonna happen,'" he recalled his brother saying. "He was petrified. 'Water's about to come in and there are about 15 people in the restaurant, and we have nowhere to go.'"
"I felt helpless," Iampieri said.
When he arrived that evening, the storm drains behind
"It was like Jennings had eyes for it. It was like a belly for all of the water."
Like numerous businesses and upwards of 400 residential homes, Iampieri's café suffered thousands of dollars-worth of flood damage, he said. With the Baltimore County Claims Management office denying his claim and accounting for the
In a
"This rain was a force of nature that could not have been foreseen or prevented by the exercise of reasonable care," wrote claims department staff member
"It was an event that was unavoidable that human intervention could neither control nor influence," wrote Raymond, and "it has been determined that the County is not liable for the damage to your property."
"You just chalk it up to a loss," Iampieri said. "Those losses, I'll never be able to make up."
Just one
The rush of water infiltrated the garage and blew out the back wall of the Broadwaters' home, destroying the foundation and what was inside -- Dan's library, the pool table, the furnace, air-conditioning units. He remembers finding personal items such as golf balls and cue sticks, washed up blocks away.
"Everything was gone," he said. "Complete loss, really."
An investigation by county personnel into the storm drainage pipe in front of the Broadwaters' home showed overgrown roots in the piping, Dan said. He recalled being told by a crew member that the pipe "was like a cork in a wine bottle; it was just a little bit of space for the water to come, because [inside] it had overgrown, neglected for so many years."
Dan said he considers himself lucky. He had enough money saved in a retirement account to replace the condemned home. He and his wife had a place nearby to stay while it was rebuilt. The county waived some of the building construction fees, even while it denied the Broadwaters' claim.
The county's storm drainage pipes "are not designed for a lot of the rainfall that we experienced in these last few years," said Councilman
The county has allocated
Locally, while
Officials previously said reconstructing the 40-foot bridge was expected to finish by spring or summer 2019, then by the end of last year, but county engineers saw some delays due to a lengthy permitting and approvals process before construction could begin, then more delays between completing the design and beginning construction due to the placement of utility poles, Fidler said.
The federal agency has also obligated money to the
Some trails 'still in a bad way'
"Catastrophic, widespread" damage closed numerous trails throughout
"Frankly, the damage was way beyond volunteer work," he said.
The trail system in the Avalon area in
Those trails are now mostly accessible to walkers, but some "are still in a bad way," Ferraro said.
The last remaining trails reopened in summer 2019, according to an emailed response from
"However while the trails are passable there are still some in need of permanent repair and some may be moved from their current route to a more sustainable location in the future," Vogelpohl wrote.
"The trails that are open are not in the state they were before," he said. "People are using them as social trails, but they've not been [fully] repaired."
The
Concrete bridges are currently in design to replace the two trail bridges near the Soapstone and
"Significant repairs" are still needed in and around the
Road repairs near the Hilton campground were finished in 2019 at a cost of
The Maryland Park Service was also awarded
Getting the federal funding "is very exciting," Ferraro said. "It's two years later, I know, but it's hard to get. There is a lot of bureaucracy involved in getting these resources to the park."
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