Most streets in Geneva back to normal after inches of flooding Tuesday night

GENEVA, N.Y. (WHEC) — Several streets in the City of Geneva have reopened to traffic after being closed for several hours due to flash flooding Tuesday.

When News10NBC first arrived at the corners of Geneva and Castle Streets late Tuesday afternoon, Geneva Street was under 6 to 8 inches of water, except for some storm debris the street is now cleared of any standing water.

What started about as slow and steady rain soon turned into a downpour, dropping more rain than the sewer drains could handle. A short time later the streets were flooded. Sara Scalise said she’s never seen it this bad before.

"Not on this street. No, I’ve never seen it that bad on more like back streets that don’t have enough drainage but never really anything this bad on like a public street in this town,” Scalise said.

Although it’s highly discouraged, a few people were able to drive their vehicles through the standing water. Scalise walked through it a couple of times telling how deep it is.

”Probably like ankle, like half, like lower calf. It’s really cold too,” Scalise said.

Tim Jennings who lives a couple of blocks came to see the flood for himself. He described what it was like during the downpour.

"It was coming down really hard. People were really having a hard time seeing when they were driving around,” Jennings said.

Firefighters responded to one home in Stanley, for a report of a wall caving in due to the floods. Turns out that wasn’t the case, but floodwater did run through the City of Geneva Fire Department building.

"Most of the water was on the other side of this house running down into this parking lot over here. So we did have some water coming into the building,” Combs said.

He also said, he was prepared for the rain, but not all the storm-related calls that came in.

”Due to the fact that we had so many all at once I ended up having to put extra staff on, and every one of the trucks I have on here at the station are all on calls,” Combs said.

Most streets were cleared of flooding before 10 p.m.