SCRANTON -- With more rain expected this week, families in Scranton are finally getting a fix to a flooding problem from this past summer.
But, the neighbors on Wyoming Avenue say the fix is only temporary.
Neighbors on the 1700-block of Wyoming Avenue in the city's Green Ridge section have a creek, called Meadowbrook, running underneath their properties. It's been a problem for decades but, the rainy year we've had made the problem even worse.
The heavy construction equipment arrived on the 1700-block of Wyoming Avenue on Wednesday, a welcome sight for some of the neighbors.
A sign that the city's promised fix to their backyard is on its way.
"We`re all in one piece and we can say we`ve got our yards, our multi-yards, back. Everybody can smile over the holidays for a change," neighbor Al Young said.
The contractors first had to clear a path for them to work in four backyards. Then they will fill in five large holes formed by a failing conduit. Eventually, the contractor will bring in steel pipe that will go inside the holes and replace 140 feet of the conduit.
Al Young and his neighbors sued the City of Scranton several years ago when the century-old conduit started to fail. The problem was made worse back in August when six inches of rain backed up the underground creek and flooded several homes on the street.
"It was a mess, we literally had seven and a half feet of water in the basement at that point," Young added.
The city promised a temporary fix by the end of January. The neighbors stress that it's just temporary. The 140 feet of new conduit won't cover all of the properties damaged in this summer's flood.
Young said there's still a lot of red tape to cut through.
"I hope that somewhere along the line, in the next 4 or 5 years, I can honestly say `amen, it`s done,'" he said.