WYOMISSING, Pa. — Right now, cars are moving on State Hill Road without a problem, but after heavy rain, this street can look very different.
“We’ve had an issue with flooding under this bike underpass here. As you can see, there’s a series of storm inlets there for water,” said Wyomissing Mayor Fred Levering.
Mayor Fred Levering says Wyomissing has tried to fix this issue.
“About 10 or 12 years ago, we increased the capacity of the inlets. We couldn’t do anything with the pipe, but we were able to increase the inlets, which gets the water into the pipe more quickly,” Levering said.
“So we have greatly reduced the amount of flooding, but we have not been able to eliminate it,” he added.
The mayor says the problem stems from what’s underneath the road.
“This pipe is not big enough, and that’s why it backs up,” Levering said.
Now, the borough is waiting for a much larger PennDOT project.
“PennDOT has released the schematics of what it’s going to do and what it’s going to look like, Levering shared.
“There’s going to be a couple of those roundabout things up the way here. But what I was indicating is we don’t have the details yet on what they’re going to do with the storm sewer,” Levering added.
Until then, the borough says police and public works will continue to monitor the area during heavy rain.
“We know there’s going to be backups. So the police keep an eye on it,” he said.
“As soon as they start to see something backing up, they notify our public works guys. They come out and put up some barricades and set up a detour,” Levering added.
PennDOT says work on the improvements on State Hill Road could start next year.