Water Damage Restoration in Island Park, RI

Island Park sits at the northeast corner of Aquidneck Island in Portsmouth, on low sandy ground along the Sakonnet River next to the old Stone Bridge abutment and across from Tiverton. It was a summer resort with an amusement park through the 1920s and 1930s, and the small cottages built for it along Park Avenue and the side streets were converted to year-round houses over the decades that followed. Most sit a few feet above the river on shallow foundations or piers.

On September 21, 1938 a twelve-foot wall of water came up the Sakonnet and took the neighborhood apart. Nineteen people died here, and houses floated across Park Avenue into the orchard behind it. Hurricane Carol flooded it again on August 31, 1954. Since then the cottages have been raised and rebuilt, but Park Avenue still floods on a serious nor'easter tide, and the river is right there.

This site puts Island Park homeowners through by phone to an independent local water damage provider who understands what the river does here.

Island Park water damage a few feet above the Sakonnet

River water in the house is a storm surge and coastal flood cleanup, and the crew treats everything it touched as contaminated. A cottage closed for the winter that came back with a split pipe is a frozen pipe cleanup. Rain through an old cottage roof is roof leak and ice dam water damage.

Rebuilding on the river after the water leaves

Portsmouth's building office handles permits here, and because the neighborhood sits in a mapped flood zone, a substantial rebuild can trigger elevation requirements before the permit issues. Ask the provider to photograph the water line inside and out before removal starts, since the flood adjuster and the town will both want it.

Call (401) 560-5802 and say how high the water reached and whether it is still in the house. An independent local water damage provider serving Island Park takes it from there.