Pawtuxet Village sits where the Pawtuxet River drops over its falls into Narragansett Bay, and the Broad Street bridge over those falls is the Cranston-Warwick line. Settled in 1638, it is one of the oldest villages in New England, and it still has 1700s and 1800s houses along Broad Street and Post Road, with 1890s through 1920s cottages and two-families on the side streets and Victorians on the bluff above the cove. The colonists who burned the British schooner Gaspee in 1772 rowed out from here, and the village celebrates it every June.
The river is the reason to know this page. On March 31, 2010, the Pawtuxet crested at 20.79 feet at the Cranston gauge a few miles upstream, roughly 13 feet above flood stage, and the falls and the streets around them were under water. The bay came the other way on October 29, 2012, when Sandy pushed the cove up into the lowest cellars. A stone foundation from 1850 was never meant to keep either one out.
We connect Pawtuxet Village homeowners with an independent local water damage provider by phone. You describe the problem; the provider decides what to look at first.
River water or bay water in a cellar is a basement flooding cleanup job with a contamination question the crew answers first. A pipe that split in an unheated ell or a summer kitchen that was closed in decades ago is frozen pipe cleanup. Once the water is out, structural drying is slow work in a house with horsehair plaster and wide pine floors, and it is done by the readings, not the calendar.
The USGS Pawtuxet River gauge at Cranston reports the river's height in real time and is the number to watch when a spring storm is forecast. Permits for rebuilding go through Cranston's Building Inspection department on the north side of the bridge and Warwick's building department on the south.
Call (401) 443-9638 now and tell us what you see. We connect you with a local water damage provider serving Pawtuxet Village.
Standing water pumped out of a basement, kitchen, or first floor, then the first meter readings to see how far it traveled.
Air movers and dehumidifiers run by the readings until joists, subfloor, plaster, and drywall come back to their dry target.
Water out of a stone or block basement after a sump failure, seepage, or a Pawtuxet River rise, then the walls and floor dried.
Contaminated water and the materials it touched removed after a sewer backup, floor-drain overflow, or failed septic system.
The rooms, ceilings, and floors a failed supply line soaked, pumped out and dried once the water is shut off.
Cleanup after a pipe froze and split in an exterior wall, an unheated porch, or a basement, then drying what the thaw let loose.
A stained, sagging, or dripping plaster or drywall ceiling opened, dried, and made ready for repair after the leak above is stopped.
Water under the dishwasher, the cabinet toe kicks, and the kitchen floor found, pulled out, and dried before the subfloor swells.