Flooding causes issues in Harlem

Richard Mohar, the Harlem Public Works director, said most of the water that flooded Harlem during the late week storms has receded but the town is still having issues.

“Thankfully, the flooding problems are not problems this morning,” Harlem Mayor Bill Taylor said.

Over the weekend, Harlem residents were asked to use water sparingly while equipment tried to catch up with sudden increase in water.

“That was because the amount of rain we got was inundating our wastewater system,” Taylor said. “We just wanted them to not run as much water down their drains as they normally do to take off some of the pressure to the systems.”

“The lift stations could not handle all the stormwater,” Mohar said. He added that he is hopeful that the equipment will be back up to speed by the end of the day.

“We’re starting to get back to normal operations,” he said.

Taylor said they were running pumps in town over the weekend to pump water away from the street and into the drain ditches.

Taylor added that the flooding did not cause any damage in town but may have washed out some of the gravel roads on the north side of Harlem.