This article was in the New London Day today: It made me remember being in Jr. High and my family owned Eldredge Hardware in Taftville, we had so many calls asking to open the store to get pumps, the water was so high.

If I could find the pictures, I would, it was when the Norwichtown Mall, was under water, along with Benny's across the street, and then go down Sturtevant Street, and at the time Shop Rite was there, compeletly underwater, it was amazing. Norwich gets huge floods, my family was lucky we always lived on Hills in Norwich, but poor downtown in 1978 after the great blizzard came in, and left all that snow, then the rains happened. I feel for these people.

Article::

Emergency calls came pouring in like the rain Wednesday. Norwich Emergency Management Director Gene Arters was deluged with reports of flooded basements, impassable roads, inundated businesses and one school with water at its doorstep.
Rivers, streams and storm drains held the surge of rain for much of the day in area towns, but by 3:30 p.m. they had had enough in Norwich.

A small West Town Street commercial plaza, which houses D&D Dry Cleaners, Nails Plus and Sam's Smoke Shop, was forced to close about 4 p.m. when water filled the basement. Norwich Public Utilities cut power to the entire complex as crews from the Yantic Volunteer Fire Department arrived with pumps to drain the basement. At the Sam's Smoke Shop side of the building, there was about 5 feet of water. D&D Dry Cleaners had 3 to 4 feet of water in its basement.

Richard Forsyth, owner of D&D, praised the fire department for its quick response “this time and last time.” D&D also flooded about a year ago when heavy rain overwhelmed the Norwichtown and Yantic areas of the city. In that incident, air compressors in the basement tipped over in the flooded basement. Forsyth said he took the advice offered by Director of Inspections James Troeger and raised the equipment off the floor on 2-foot-high cinder blocks. This time, he said, the tanks remained in place.

Yantic Fire Chief Frank Blanchard said the water came from overwhelmed storm drains — not from flood-prone Yantic River. His crews set up about 40 sandbags in the rear parking lot to direct the rushing water away from the building and set up the pumps. Blanchard estimated it would take about an hour to pump the water out of the basement. Then it would be up to Troeger and NPU to decide when to restore power.

Forsyth hopes to open for business at his normal time, 7 a.m. today.

Also in Norwich Wednesday evening, Mediterranean Lane, a narrow country road off the Norwichtown Green, was closed due to flooding.

Blanchard said one single-family home at 12 Gifford Lane had 4 feet of water in the basement. Power was cut off and fire crews were pumping out the basement, he said.

The Yantic River was “high” but holding in its banks, Blanchard said Wednesday afternoon.

At the start of the storm, the river was 7 inches below normal, giving it some capacity to absorb the new storm, Arters said. The electronic flood gauge that normally monitors the river is not functioning, Arters said, leaving him and his staff to resort to on-site inspections.

Around 3:30 p.m. roadways in East Lyme looked like they might be overwhelmed by storm runoff, but the rain slowed and the water receded, according to Dick Morris, the town's fire marshal. Morris said by 5 p.m. everything was back to normal.

Around 6 p.m. on Wednesday, the Montville dispatch center reported flooding in the Oakdale section of town, on Hunter's Run.

In Groton, police reported flooding on the Interstate 95 onramp at Bridge Street, and flooding on Route 117 near Groton Public Library.

Police in Stonington said at 4:30 p.m. they almost decided to close Route 1 in Mystic, an area east of Mason's Island Road, when rain flooded the street and made it difficult for cars to pass. An officer and a firetruck were posted at that stretch of road to warn drivers to slow down.

State police reported several minor motor vehicle accidents in the morning due to people traveling too fast for the conditions on the road.

The National Weather Service radar indicated areas of heavy rain moving through southeastern Connecticut in the afternoon.

Gary Lessor from the Weather Center at Western Connecticut State University said the amount of rain that southeastern Connecticut area received, 1.82 inches, could produce 19 inches of snow under the right conditions.