Heavy rain once again sent water rushing down Woolsey Avenue and surrounding Glen Cove streets last Sunday morning, flooding yards and basements and once again raising questions about whether recently completed drainage improvements are enough to address a problem residents say has persisted for decades.
The storm brought intense rainfall to the city, with residents scrambling to clear drains and protect their property. They sent the Herald more than a dozen videos showing water flooding their lots and neighborhood streets.
Stephen Melbinger, a Woolsey Avenue resident, said the water in his backyard was about a foot deep, and there was an inch of water in his basement as well. “We’re getting good at it,” Melbinger said, “because this is the 13th time in 25 years that has happened.”
The flooding came shortly after the city completed drainage work on Chestnut Street and Poplar Place — improvements stemming largely from a 2024 engineering study of the Woolsey Avenue drainage system by IMEG, formerly Cameron Engineering, a firm in Rock Island, Illinois.
The study confirmed that Woolsey sits at a relative low point in the surrounding watershed, causing stormwater from neighboring streets to flow toward it. IMEG’s modeling concluded that the existing system could generally handle a 10-year rainfall event, but would begin to “surcharge” —fill beyond its capacity — during more intense storms. The report evaluated improvements ranging from modifying roadway inlets to multimillion-dollar expansions of the underground drainage network.
Glen Cove’s director of public works, Michael Yeosock, said that the city has implemented the majority of the study’s recommendations. On Chestnut Street, Yeosock explained, two catch basins near Manning Road had been connected to an undersized 12-inch pipe that was also obstructed by tree roots. The city expanded drainage and doubled the size of the pipe.
“We corrected that situation by installing new drainage on Chestnut Street,” he said.
The city also completed work on Poplar Place, where, Yeosock said, drainage in a recharge area near Beech Court had been obstructed. Crews cleaned out the area, added drainage and installed two dry wells, or leaching basins, because the area’s elevation prevented workers from connecting to a gravity-fed pipe.
But residents contend that those improvements haven’t stopped water from reaching Woolsey. The Poplar basins, Melbinger said, filled in about 15 minutes during the heavy rain, and then overflowed toward Woolsey. He said that residents once again found themselves clearing drains on Sunday morning, including removing sod that Melbinger said came from the recently completed construction.
The repeated flooding has also forced him to alter his property to protect critical equipment. Melbinger said he had raised his oil tank, previously at grass level, several inches, a precaution he said helped protect it during Sunday’s flooding. He recalled an earlier flood in which water contaminated roughly 200 gallons of heating oil, leaving it unusable, and said that another such incident could cost thousands of dollars to remedy.
“The road is dry — not our houses,” Melbinger told Mayor Pamela Panzenbeck at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
Another resident, Alfredo Martinez, also questioned the effectiveness of the improvements at the meeting, telling officials that his backyard had once again resembled a lake.
“Whatever work the engineers did, apparently, it’s like nothing happened,” Martinez said. “Those drains filled very quick.”
Panzenbeck said she had visited Woolsey shortly after she received a text from a resident on Sunday morning, and found the road clear by 8:09 a.m. She noted that flooding occurred throughout Glen Cove and neighboring communities during the intense storm. “It came down very fast and furious,” she said.
Another focus is Dosoris Lane, which residents and city officials say contributes runoff to the neighborhood. Melbinger contends that much of the water tha floods Woolsey comes from Dosoris, and, he said, the problem worsened after Dosoris, a county road, was repaved several years ago. An earlier road grade, Melbinger said, had helped keep water on Dosoris rather than directing it toward Woolsey.
Panzenbeck said that the city is now working with Nassau County, and was scheduled to hold its third meeting with county officials this week, focusing on Dosoris Lane.
Yeosock added that county officials were examining potential drainage work on Dosoris, although plans remain preliminary.
The IMEG study also contemplated substantial work to resize downstream drainage infrastructure in the Brewster Street area, Yeosock said, but the study described that as a costly, long-term project.
“That hasn’t been implemented yet, but, I mean, that’s still out there,” he said. “We’re talking to the county about that.”
For Woolsey residents, however, another significant storm means another round of protecting their homes while longer-term solutions remain under discussion.
“It does dissipate,” Melbinger said of the flooding, “but it dissipates into our basements, into our backyards.”
