PARMA, Ohio — Residents living in the Parma neighborhoods of Green Acres Drive, David Drive and Green Valley Drive made it clear they're tired of dealing with chronic flooding attacking their homes and streets.
Residents voiced their concerns over what they called an antiquated storm sewer system at the July 1 Parma city council meeting.
Homeowners told News 5 they have been receiving few answers and nothing but broken promises as the city continues to work with the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District in the search for a solution.
Homeowner Bryan Lewis said repeated flooding has hit his neighborhood especially hard.
"The last seven years I’ve been getting in contact with whoever I can get in contact with and all they do is give me the runaround,” Lewis said.
“Parma tells me to take it to the county because they are not in charge of their sewers anymore, the county tells me they can’t do anything until the City of Parma tells them what to do.”
“It blows the manholes lids off of the sewers and when it floods you can’t see that. If there was a small child or an adult coming down here, if they were to step in there who knows what would happen.”
Homeowner Tom Preisel told News 5 many more homes were added and many trees were cut down many years ago near his house and the city did not order the developer to update the storm sewer system,
“The problem is too much flow capacity for our inadequate eight inch drains,” Preisel said.
"My home was built in 1959, so the sewer that was in here was adequate then, but then when these new developments came in it turned into a mess."
“It's extremely frustrating. We can’t go traveling, we can’t leave the house anymore because every time it rains we expect to have a flood.”
The problem is not new, News 5 reported on heavy floodingin that region of Parma back in April 2017.
The Parma mayor and city engineer told News 5 they take the flooding issue very seriously and hope they have the results of a flow study from the sewer district in the coming months so they can start on a solution.
Meanwhile, homeowners like Paula Domachowski believe the city has taken far too long to take action.
"I’m very upset, I don’t what to say to you about it,” Domachowski said.
“When it comes to your homes, you want to improve on them and live here comfortably, and it’s always a headache because you never know when a storm comes and when we’ll be hit next.”
