Note: This article was originally published in the Beacon Hill Paper, November 5, 1996.

Noah would have felt entirely comfortable in Boston of late. September 18th saw four inches of rain saturate the area; a month later over eight inches fell.

In a one month span we had a so-called 50-year storm and a 100-year storm. The only bright spot, apparently, is that we will not receive another such soaking for 150 years.

Although all parts of Boston were hurt in some fashion by the rains, two areas were particularly devastated. In Roslindale, raw sewage literally geysered from manholes in the streets, flooding streets and basements. In Kenmore Square and the Fenway, flooding waters forced evacuation of basement apartments and some larger buildings, destroyed basement level storerooms of numerous businesses and shut down the Green Line.

Government officials are only now beginning to sort out what happened. Some of the answers are disturbing however.

The floods in Roslindale, the Fenway and Kenmore Square all appear to be related to each other. Boston and 59 other cities and towns are served by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. MWRA sewer pipes collect sewage and rainwater from all of these communities and funnel it to treatment plants at Deer Island and Nut Island.

Although officials stress that they are still uncertain, it appears that the MWRA’s carrying capacity was rapidly exceeded, resulting in the floods in Roslindale. Sewerage was diverted out of the MWRA system to the Stony Brook and Muddy Rivers, which also exceeded capacity. The system as a whole did not have sufficient relief capacity, but why some areas were flooded and others were not is still unclear.

Representatives from the Boston Water and Sewer Commission and the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority are now puzzling over the problems from the storm. Although they believe they ultimately can get a good fix on what happened, they are less certain that any easy solution is available. Fixing the problem in Roslindale, for example, might only send more waters down the Muddy River and the Charles River imperiling further the Fenway, Back Bay and the flats of Beacon Hill. Improving the flow of the Muddy River will entail expanding the culverts under the Sears building in the Fenway and dredging the river itself, something the Army Corps of Engineers rejected in the past.

Equally disturbing is the seeming lack of coordination in handling the rainstorms. A number of city departments become involved in emergencies, including the Fire Department, Police, the Health Department, the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, the Environment Department and so on. Outside agencies play a role too — the MWRA, the Metropolitan District Commission, and police officials at the state level. Yet there appeared during the most recent storm to be no one group or individual coordinating these activities.

Indeed, the city’s reaction to the storms suggests that there is good reason to believe that the city needs to rethink its disaster preparedness overall. Right now, disaster coordination is the responsibility of the Fire Department. Is this the best place from which one coordinates disaster response? Arguably, no. Other cities have placed disaster response in the Mayor’s office, where political and administrative relationships can ensure a more rapid and effective planning and response.

Boston may indeed not have another flood such as it had this October (although the last time we had a 100-year flood was in 1955 — decidedly not 100 years ago). But other disasters lurk — plane crashes, hurricanes, major blackouts, and so on. Developing a sound disaster planning strategy is not only responsible, it may save lives.