NORWICH – Flooding from the Chenango River and Canasawacta Creek due to ongoing heavy rains forced Norwich residents in the south and west sides of the city to evacuate their homes late Tuesday night. At least 57 of them sought shelter with the Red Cross at the Stanford J. Gibson Elementary School on Ridgeland Drive.

“Police said to evacuate, so we got out,” said Cortland Street resident Marylin Coffee, who described what she said was a river of water that ran onto her front lawn at around 11 p.m. last night.

Residents on nearby Pleasant Street said that thigh-high flood water from the Canasawacta Creek had made their homes extremely unsafe.

“I had to go and pull my mother out of it,” said Laura Gould, whose mother lives on Pleasant Street. “She was covered.”

As the rain let-up for a time this morning and the water levels receded, some residents had a chance to return home and view the extent of the flooding.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen for 100 years,” said Willard Court resident Bridget Hannan, whose basement filled with over five feet of water as her backyard completely flooded within a half hour when the creek swelled. “I brought up as much as I could, but everything we had down there got washed away.” Hannan and her husband evacuated last night.

Just a few hundred feet away around the corner on Cortland Street, Mike Rose was only pumping out three or four inches of water from his father’s basement. “It looks like it got up to about a foot,” Rose said, pointing out a water mark on the cellar door. “It looks like it has gone down quite a bit.”

On the south side of town, residents on Birdsall Street near Hale Street saw two to three feet of water in the street, but say the damage in their homes is so far manageable.