Flash Flood Soaks Homes in the Center of Walpole, Knocks Out Rt. 123 Bridge to Drewsville
By Charles C. and Sue L. Bingaman, Contributing Writers
Flash flooding early Sunday morning caused Mad Brook to overflow near the intersection of School and High Streets in Walpole sending a torrent down High street, around and through nearly two dozen houses and businesses, and destroying an 800 foot stretch of Main Street that had been newly paved on Friday and the new storm drainage system beneath it. It also destroyed the historic 1907 stone-arched bridge over the Cold River on Rt. 123 three miles north of the village.
Following heavy rains Friday evening and all day Saturday, a large culvert under the High Street Bridge near School Street appeared to clog with branches and other storm debris causing the then teaming stream to roar over its bed around 4:00 a.m.
“We heard the water roaring, looked out our window and saw that we had ‘water-front property’ right here on Old North Main Street around 4:30 a.m.”, Kris Tyson laughingly described it Sunday afternoon. “Then we looked in our basement and saw all kinds of things floating. It was terrible, but it me made realize how much more fortunate we were than the people in New Orleans.”
Down the Main Street hill, Rita Wiley said she had 18 inches of water in her basement but that “things were a lot worse for Jerry McDougle whose apartment was directly in the path of the flood waters at the back of the Kasper building on Main Street.” Wiley spent Sunday moving wet clothing, bedding and other items from McDougle’s apartment and washing them at her house, including salvaging McDougle’s 100th Anniversary Boston Marathon shirt, a valuable memento of his run.
At the bottom of Main Street Erica and Mark Wojchick and their two children awoke around 4:30 a.m. to find their house “literally an island in a raging river. The Walpole firemen initially shouted to us to stay in the house but a short time later they told us to come out. We removed a front window, climbed out with the kids, and waded through the water to the fire truck.” Although the water reached as high as two and a half feet around the walls of the house, very little came inside. “We’ve lost our lawn, gardens and fence, but we’re pretty lucky otherwise”, Erica said last night.
Through the day yesterday, Walpole lawyer Rob Kasper and his family and friends were removing furniture, rugs, files and everything that could be moved to allow his offices at the corner of Main and High to begin drying out after taking the brunt of the flash flood right through a back door that the water knocked down.
Thomas F. Chiffriller, whose house is the oldest in Walpole and sits on Old North Main diagonally across the street from Kasper’s office, had several inches of water in his basement, but he fared better that several neighbors who were looking at several feet on it in theirs.
Three miles north of the village, the 1908 stone arched bridge carrying NH Rt. 123 over the Cold River was washed out during the night as the river became a raging torrent. Sunday afternoon crews were fixing power lines over the remains of the bridge resting in the river. Built in 1907 and opened in early 1908, the stone arched bridge carried Route 12 until the current bridge over the Cold River was opened further downstream in 1958. The stone arched bridge replaced an even older covered bridge that had long spanned the Cold River at the same spot and had burned down in 1907. During the building of the stone bridge, wooden arches supporting the partially finished stone arches were twice washed out during periods of heavy rain and swift currents according to A History of Walpole by Martha McDanalds Frizzell.