LOWVILLE, N.Y. (WWNY) – The way Lowville’s floodwaters enter the village raises questions about whether anything has changed or needs to change at the local hospital.

Video sent to us after Monday’s storm shows water coming from the back of the hospital parking lot and pouring directly down State Route 26.

Some people wonder if a recent addition to the hospital and the removal of large amounts of rocks and soil may have contributed to the flooding.

One of them is Scott Andre, a retired employee of the county’s road department.

“When you do that, you change the landscape. So you open it up, and if you don’t put drainage there, the water can’t flow out,” he said.

But Jerry Cayer, CEO of Lewis County Health System, says where the water is entering the hospital grounds is not where the recent expansion project took place.

“To be clear, this water is not produced by the health system,” he said.

To help people understand, Cayer wanted to explain where he thinks the water comes from, so he took us through it from top to bottom – starting at Number Three Road.

Cayer says the water then flowed through a makeshift river and pipe into the parking lot, an area that had remained untouched for over a decade.

The water eventually flowed into North State Street and from there into residential areas and homes.

“We are the middleman in this process. The water comes from somewhere else, it flows through us and ends up in a place that is much lower than us,” Cayer said.

Both Cayer and Tim Hunt, Lewis County’s road superintendent, say that after the July flood, a pipe near the hospital parking lot became clogged, meaning it wasn’t working as well as intended.

On Tuesday, crews were on site to replace a section of the pipe – a short-term solution.

“We’re going to bring together a group of all the stakeholders. The hospital, the state, the county, the city, the village, to discuss how we deal with this water in the future,” Hunt said.

Cayer says the hospital will share some of the responsibility and help the community develop a plan to prevent future flooding.

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