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Rain in Jenkins Township Floods Home

JENKINS TOWNSHIP — High water after Monday’s heavy rain made its way into at least one home in Luzerne County. The 1400 block of Main Street near Pi...

JENKINS TOWNSHIP -- High water after Monday's heavy rain made its way into at least one home in Luzerne County.

The 1400 block of Main Street near Pittston was flooded out Tuesday morning.

The family blames a drainage ditch and is begging for a solution.

Thomas Groom cleaned up water damage from his garage as a hose pumped water out of his home's basement Tuesday.

The water damage is so bad, Groom says his back yard looked more like a lake.

"We come back here and it's level with the deck, the water right across, and I'm thinking-- the first thing I did, I had no shoes on, I jumped out and I tried to start moving the cars, but by then they were already flooded," Groom said.

Groom says the water destroyed his basement walls, left part of the home`s first floor in ruins, and damaged three vehicles, including an antique car and his personal car.

“I got no way to work, know what I mean? Everything's flooded," said Groom. "I mean my backyard has over six feet. I'm all the way flooded up to the first floor. This happened in the past, October 16, 2014. The township's been notified and they don't want to do anything about it. It's definitely one of their problems, they're just passing it off."

The water that flooded the property came from a nearby drainage ditch. Authorities from Jenkins Township say an unusual amount of water was been flowing through here, but they`re not sure why.

"We don't know. There's so many things. There's honeycombs underneath here. This is 70, 80 years ago. We need to find out," Jenkins Township Supervisor Stanley Rovinski said.

“How do you put new drains into an old one and not know where it goes, know what I mean?" asked Groom.

Flooding also just happened here last October. What may be troubling is that in both instances, there wasn't a heavy amount of rainfall.

Now, Jenkins Township says it will be back Friday to try to clean up a drainage pipe and investigate what's causing the excessive water flow. But in the meantime, Groom can only hope it doesn`t rain.

“It's nice out now, you know? It could flood any minute!"

The township doesn`t know long its investigation will take, saying there is no quick fix to this kind of problem.

The Red Cross is helping the family.

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