New Bedford Official Says More Rain Needed

It was a rainy Monday in what has been a very dry summer on the Southcoast which caused the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs to issue a Drought Warning for Southeastern Massachusetts.

Zeb Arruda, Commissioner of New Bedford's Department of Public Infrastructure, told WBSM News that there is still a long way to go before the region makes up the decificit caused by this year's drought.

"Our reservoir right now stands about two feet below where it should be at this point of the year," said Arruda "we would need a few days of rainfall to catch-up to where we should be. If we got rain once or twice a week here for the next few weeks I would think in the next month, month and a half, we'd be exactly where we want to be."

While the rain is certainly good news for our depleted reservoirs, Arruda says the city is also working to address any potential flooding concerns.

"We've had over 15 crews out in our lower lying areas of the city," said Arruda "the water doesn't get absorbed in the hard ground, runs off into the street line, thus flooding our catch basins and our Bradley heads across the city."

Arruda says that it would be preferable to get a gentle soaking rain as opposed to a hard downpour which is less likely to be absorbed into the soil which has become dry and hardened due to the ongoing drought.