Packing winds of nearly 70 MPH and more than two inches of rain, Monday’s southeaster caused extensive flooding along Warwick’s 39 miles of shoreline, downed trees and fortunately caused  minimal power outages.  And while winds subsided and the sun broke out Tuesday, the Pawtuxet River continued to swell until it crested at 15.05 feet, the second highest recorded. In 2010, when the river flooded the Warwick Mall and closed Route 95, it crested at 20.79 feet.

One of the initial signs this wasn’t just another windy rain storm came as students arrived at Toll Gate High School. They were greeted by leaks throughout the building, as winds had lifted sections of roofing membrane from the decking. About the same time winds toppled a giant tree at 737 Narrganasett Parkway that crushed a recently installed fence but spared the house and the adjoining property.

Department of Public Works Sanitation Director Richard Gallant.  said the first storm-related call came in at 5 a.m. for a downed tree on Cowesett Road. In terms of tree damage, he said Warwick Neck appeared to be hardest hit with the most severe damage occurring to a home on Hollis Avenue. He said a tree went through the roof and city crews worked to free limbs from the roof so that tarps could be installed to avoid  further interior damage.

Mayor Frank Picozzi was also out and about Monday. He said he up-righted a number of toppled sanitation and recycling bins (city crews completed their Monday routes), visited the Apponaug Brewery on the banks of the Pawtuxet that was flooded as well as checked flooding at Greenwich Apartments across the river and the Shaw’s market on Warwick Avenue. At Conimicut Point he encountered a woman who was attempting to reach the point for photographs.

“You can’t go there,” he recalls telling her. He said the woman wasn’t pleased by his directive, but backed off. Soon after the gate to the point was closed and locked as were the gates at the Oakland Beach seawall.

Gallant said that at the height of the storm, the department was responding to 25 sites throughout the city. Crews were divided between freeing drains of debris and clearing roads of downed limbs and trees. The cleanup continued Tuesday.

The combination of the storm surge, high tide and closure of the Providence hurricane barrier flooded low lying roads in Conimicut including Point and Shawomet Avenues and area  roads. Residents reported flooding wasn’t as bad as during Super Storm Sandy and to the knowledge of police at the scene, no one required evacuation.

Leaks abound at Toll Gate

At Toll Gate, students were dismissed at the first period and moved to distance learning for the following two days due to leaks within the building.

In an email to the families of Toll Gate students, Superintendent Lynn Dambruch said repairs to the school would have to wait until after the storm.

“The repairs will begin tomorrow, as the weather conditions will not allow workers to begin the work today,” Dambruch said. “Due to the nature of the repairs, it is expected to be extremely noisy and will interrupt learning.”

Dambruch said that Toll Gate would switch to a distance learning model for the extent of the construction, so as not to interrupt learning.

Darlene Netcoh, an English teacher at Toll Gate and president of the Warwick Teacher’s Union, said the decision to send students home for the day was announced at 7:50 a.m.

Students and faculty went to the cafeteria to wait for buses after the announcement, while the students who drove to the school got to leave.

“I walked up by the football fields, and the wind was blowing the doors open,” Netcoh said. “From [building] B3, you can see the roof on the A building, and I could see the rubber membrane undulating in the wind.”

According to Netcoh  this isn’t the first issue that Toll Gate’s roofing has had. Back when she was a student in the 1983-84 academic year, another leak made a classroom unusable before it was repaired.

“The building was only about 10 years old, the roof in the A2 building was leaking, not just water, it was leaking tar into the classroom,” she said. “They took out the ceiling tiles and put out plastic sheets to catch the goo.”

Netcoh said that she was not aware of any teaching equipment being damaged by the roofing leaks, though she knew some teachers were covering their equipment just in case.

“This is why we need new high schools,” she said, also referencing a recent incident where Pilgrim High School dismissed early due to a gas leak.

Due to the school having already taken attendance for the day, Netcoh believes that Toll Gate will not have to have a make-up day at the end of the school year, although she noted the final decision from the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) could be different.

Netcoh said that Toll Gate teachers were prepared for the temporary switch to distance learning.

Toll Gate families will receive updates should the situation change later this week, according to Dambruch.

Brewery flooded

Apponaug Brewery Company co-owner Tamara McKenney’s first day back from vacation was not a pleasant one.

She first noticed her business beginning to flood at around 2 a.m. The Pawtuxet River would crest as high as fifteen feet later that day.

“I’ve got two feet in the showroom, two feet in the bathroom, two feet everywhere,” McKenney said Tuesday morning. “It hasn’t gone down yet.”

McKenney, alongside co-owner Kris Waugh and other onlookers, helped salvage barrels and other materials from the brewery’s showroom. While the Pontiac Mills parking lot was largely not flooded, a significant portion of Knight Street- where the brewery is located- was impassable.

Waugh said that having to deal with the second-highest Pawtuxet River flood in recorded history was something that the company would never forget. Apponaug Brewery Company was not yet established during the 2010 Pawtuxet River flood.

Elsewhere in Warwick, police closed off multiple roads and bridges over the Pawtuxet, including the East Avenue Bridge.

By mid-morning Tuesday, Pawtuxet River waters had inundated sections of Natick, Knight Street in Pontiac and Belmont Park, Bellow Street and businesses on the south side of the river east and west of Warwick Avenue including Shaw’s market.

Ron Carraccio, owner of Edgewood Gallery on Venturi Avenue was outside of the business Tuesday morning surveying a flooded Bellows Street. He said the street was clear at 11:30 p.m. when he left Monday.

“There were puddles when I got here at 5  (Tuesday morning),” he said. By 9:30 Bellows Street was awash.

Gallant who visited the area in the morning encountered one business owner new to the area who questioned why the city didn’t pump the street dry.  Gallant asked where they could pump the water and the man suggested into the drains to the river. Gallant’s reply was, “this is the river.”

Gallant said sanitation and recycling drivers  made the extra effort of righting toppled bins to empty them, but couldn’t get to all of them.

“We’ll put if off to next week…hopefully, people will have the patience,” he said.

As for whether the department needed any assistance from the state or other municipalities, Gallant said,

“We’ve been down the road so many times and know what is needed,”  he said.