Floodwaters receded rapidly in parts of Hamilton Beach on Oct. 30 after the city Department of Environmental Protection deployed a mobile pump at Davenport Court, but the area civic says the response came hours after high tide, and that better staging of equipment could have prevented much of the damage.

According to a post by Roger Gendron, president of the New Hamilton Beach Civic Association, the pump arrived around 8 p.m., nearly five hours after high tide. Once activated, the equipment quickly lowered water levels from more than 8 inches to near zero in just over an hour.

Before the pump was turned on, it had taken roughly four hours for floodwaters to drop from the peak of more than 15 inches to that 8-inch mark, Gendron said.

The neighborhood has long struggled with tidal and sto

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