Breach between two ponds causes flooding in East Bridgewater

EAST BRIDGEWATER, Mass — Parts of East Bridgewater started flooding after a section of land between two ponds broke open.

Nearly a dozen homes had some water come into their yards and basements. The water is starting to recede.

The water from Robins pond came rushing this way right after the break. The fire chief says the main issue was the pond on the other side of the dam is higher so when the breach happened – it all came this way.

Lisa Jazon and her husband knew something wasn’t right – first, it was 2 feet of water, then another two feet.

“I knew we were dealing with water that was coming up too fast and we called the fire department to come check it out. Keep us safe and see if they could deal with the flooding from the other pond,” said Jazon.

They first tried to stop the water with sandbags.

“The sand bags were worthless so everything started floating so we have been walking around trying to grab our stuff from the backyard and getting it out of the water,” said Jazon.

Then they called the fire department. Drone video captured how the water was flooding several areas.

Drone video shows flooded East Bridgewater neighborhoods

The Fire Chief Tim Harhen told Boston 25 News a man-made barrier between Robins pond and a pond in neighboring Halifax breached.

”I found about a 20 foot section of it washed away. That pond sits about 4 feet higher than Robins pond so all that water flooded into Robins pond,” said Harhen. The Fire Chief says about 10-12 homes were dealing with the flooding but none of the homes had to be evacuated. Most of the damage was to yards and basements. One main road had to be closed until the water went down. “We were concerned the culvert on pond street would fail and all that water would be going downstream,” said Harhen.

Homeowners are thankful this happened at a time when they were not caught off guard.

“If the water came up to this level overnight we would have been in a lot more trouble. It would be a lot harder,” said Jazon.

What caused the breach is still not clearly known. The Chief believes the recent rains may have been just enough to start an overflow between the two ponds and that turned into the break. MEMA was called in to inspect what happened as well.

Broken dam causes extensive flooding in East Bridgewater neighborhoods

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