City of Hartford rolls out grant program to help fund repairs from flood damage caused by heavy summer rainstorms

Amid an outcry by residents and small businesses, the city of Hartford rolled out a $500,000 grant program to help repair damage caused by heavy rainstorms this summer that flooded streets and basements and backed up sewers.

“We know that it will not cover all the costs and all the losses for everybody that was hit,” Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said on the front steps of a home in the Blue Hills neighborhood that suffered flood damage. “But we do hope it will make a difference.”

Bronin acknowledged the program is a stop-gap measure before the city is able to find longer-term measures to lessen flooding and tackle more major sewer and storm water projects. Those projects include separating storm water and sewer lines that exist in many Hartford neighborhoods.

Throughout much of the Hartford, those systems are a century old and not designed to handle the intensity of the rainstorms the city experienced in late August and early September, Bronin said.

“These issues are not getting better,” Bronin said. “They are getting worse as climate change makes severe weather events more common. This year we experienced what used to be classified as a 200-year storm, a 25-year storm and a nearly 100-year storm in the course of about three weeks.”

In the aftermath of those storms, flooding was a hot topic at neighborhood meetings. Some residents saying back-ups were so bad they saw human feces floating in their basements.

While flooding was not limited to the city’s North End, some of the worst happened in the Blue Hills and Upper Albany neighborhoods.

Helen Bradshaw, who has lived for 42 years in the Granby Street ranch where Monday’s announcement was made, said she wonders whether her home is going to stay dry every time there is a heavy downpour.

Bradshaw said she has lived through years of flooding, and one time a couple of years ago it was so bad that water nearly touched the ceiling of her basement.

This summer, Bradshaw said it wasn’t as bad, but she still got 8 to 10 inches in her basement.

“It just came gushing in through the toilet, the sink, up to the bottom step of the basement and the street was all flooded out,” Bradshaw said. “It was a mess down there.”

Bradshaw said it took two days to clean-up. She said she intends to apply for the grant program.

The program, which uses city dollars, provides for grants of up to $7,500 to owner-occupants of 1-3 unit residential buildings and small business owners. The program only applies to repairs in the wake of Storms Fred, Henri or Ida.

To receive the grant, household income should not exceed 120% of the area median income where the property is located. That ranges from $87,612 for a one-person household to $145,186 for a six-person household, according to figures released by the city Monday.

The grants cannot be used for repairs covered by insurance or alternatives offered by the Metropolitan District Commission, the regional water and sewer authority.

Some eligible repairs include sump pumps, replacement of lines from property to main line in the street, window wells, basement cleaning, new boilers and hot water heaters, among other things.

Sen. Doug McCrory, D-Hartford, who was among local and state officials at Monday’s news conference, said the flooding came on top of devastation by COVID-19.

“In the midst of so many people losing their lives and finding employment difficulty, when our constituents have to face another tragedy, the fact [is] that this flooding took place,” McCrory said.

The city urged homeowners and small businesses to apply quickly.

Homeowners can contact Shawana Bowens in the city’s housing division at Shawana.Bowens@hartford.gov or by phone at 860 757-9030 for information or to request an application.

Small business owners should contact Kylah Hudson-Samuels at Kylah.Hudson@hartford.gov or by phone at 860 757-9526.

Kenneth R. Gosselin at kgosselin@courant.com.