Stormwater and Flooding

A heavy storm shouldn’t flood your street or or your home.

Every Providence resident deserves to feel confident that a heavy rainstorm won’t flood their street, damage their home or disrupt their neighborhood. As storms get stronger, the Smiley Administration is investing to keep our City safer from flooding. Storms are getting stronger and our sewer and stormwater pipes are too old and small to keep up. Even a small storm can flood streets, back up into basements, open sinkholes and contaminate local water. These failures are costly, disrupt daily life and can even put lives in danger.

We’ve already started and here’s the plan to finish the job:

DPW Projects

We’re already repairing damaged pipes- Public Works has put more than $2.7 million toward inspecting, cleaning and repairing blocked and broken pipes to cut flooding and keep polluted runoff out of our rivers.

SNEP SOAR

Neighbors are helping map where flooding hits hardest- with a $300,000 grant, the City is working with residents and community groups to map where flooding is worst, starting in the Woonasquatucket River and West River neighborhoods and to shape the fixes together.

Green Infrastructure

Investing in green infrastructure, like rain gardens and runoff systems, to slow the flow of excessive rain from flooding streets and polluting our waterways.

With adequate resources, we can take these solutions to scale and solve problems in all of our neighborhoods. Replacing an aging system takes steady, reliable funding and that’s what our recent assessment study lays out.

Providence’s Need for Sustainable, Equitable Funding for Stormwater and Sewer Systems:
The City studied what it costs to run and fix the system now and in the future.

Task Force:
Residents helped shape the plan — A task force ranging from developers to environmental justice advocates spent eight months weighing the challenges and trade-offs before recommending how to fund a better system.

This plan is the foundation for the work ahead. The cost of inaction is measured not just in dollars, but in flooded homes, disrupted businesses and damaged public spaces. By acting now, we can protect what matters most and leave the next generation a stronger, safer, more resilient Providence.

Get Involved!

Join us at a community meeting this summer, tell us where you see flooding in your neighborhood, learn more about Mayor Smiley and his climate resiliency work here and read the assessment.

A heavy storm shouldn’t flood your street or or your home.

We’ve already started and here’s the plan to finish the job:

DPW Projects

We’re already repairing damaged pipes- Public Works has put more than $2.7 million toward inspecting, cleaning and repairing blocked and broken pipes to cut flooding and keep polluted runoff out of our rivers.

SNEP SOAR

Neighbors are helping map where flooding hits hardest- with a $300,000 grant, the City is working with residents and community groups to map where flooding is worst, starting in the Woonasquatucket River and West River neighborhoods and to shape the fixes together.

Green Infrastructure

Investing in green infrastructure, like rain gardens and runoff systems, to slow the flow of excessive rain from flooding streets and polluting our waterways.

With adequate resources, we can take these solutions to scale and solve problems in all of our neighborhoods. Replacing an aging system takes steady, reliable funding and that’s what our recent assessment study lays out.

Providence’s Need for Sustainable, Equitable Funding for Stormwater and Sewer Systems: The City studied what it costs to run and fix the system now and in the future.

Task Force: Residents helped shape the plan — A task force ranging from developers to environmental justice advocates spent eight months weighing the challenges and trade-offs before recommending how to fund a better system.

This plan is the foundation for the work ahead. The cost of inaction is measured not just in dollars, but in flooded homes, disrupted businesses and damaged public spaces. By acting now, we can protect what matters most and leave the next generation a stronger, safer, more resilient Providence.

Get Involved!

Join us at a community meeting this summer, tell us where you see flooding in your neighborhood, learn more about Mayor Smiley and his climate resiliency work here and read the assessment.

Providence’s Need for Sustainable, Equitable Funding for Stormwater and Sewer Systems:
The City studied what it costs to run and fix the system now and in the future.

Task Force:
Residents helped shape the plan — A task force ranging from developers to environmental justice advocates spent eight months weighing the challenges and trade-offs before recommending how to fund a better system.