Ontario County remains in a State of Emergency due to the heavy rains and flooding.
The community of Canandaigua was hit the hardest when flood waters rushed in.
“This is a common thing that happens when you have a storm that comes down quickly, concentrated and so much water in such a short amount of time," said Ontario County Commissioner of Public Works Bill Wright.
The problem is in many places in Canandaigua – jammed culverts, pipes and drainage systems – triggered by five-and-and-half inches of rain in just a few hours – according to the Automated Weather Observation System.
“Sometimes, no matter how big the culverts are, there’s so much bedload that comes down, it gets stuck underneath the culvert and it blocks everything back up," said Wright.
Wright and his team are out and about examining the roadways and bridges looking for signs of infrastructure damage caused by the flash flood waters.
"So what we’re concerned with is something called scour,” he said. “So when the water hits this it has to go faster to get around it. So when that happens you start to look at the foundation underneath it and you try to find out once the water recedes. We’ll do an investigation of our bridges and structures and see if any of the side structure of the bridge is undermined. So those are the types of things that we evaluate after a storm like this.”
There are already discussions about the integrity of the infrastructure.
“Over the last several years, the town working with the watershed council and our watershed manager along with other municipalities have put intensive efforts and money into stormwater retention projects," said Canandaigua Town Supervisor Jared Simpson.
“The infrastructure within the ground, sewer infrastructure, water infrastructure, that’s why I work so hard in advocating through the state government and assistance from the federal government because all across the state, not just in Ontario County, we have aging infrastructure that needs to be upgraded and replaced,” Senator Pam Helming said. “But I do give kudos the city of Canandaigua and the town of Canandaigua and all of Ontario County because they have been very proactive and very aggressive and very successful in going after those state dollars so that they can make improvements.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul addressed the floods in Ontario County while at the Canadaigua Fire Department on Monday.
"I’ve been in contact with everybody to the white house, the secretary of transportation, head of FEMA, our senators, [Kirsten] Gillibrand and Senate Majority Leader Schumer have also been in contact with us to offer any assistance with the FEMA declaration, which will be really important to get the money to the state, but also to the localities so they can start rebuilding," Hochul said.
For now though, County Administrator Chris DeBolt is still assessing the situation and the damage.
“I think it was a combination of how quickly it happened and how localized it was,” DeBolt said.
DeBolt says he is thankful for everyone who’s lending a helping hand.
“Yeah, waters came up fast but so did the community and that was heartening,” he said.
Leaders say it’s teamwork that prevented this significant event from becoming worse.