Question: What is the Hawthorne Brook Neighborhood Association?

Welcome to You Ask, Patch Answers, a column in which you ask us a question about anything going on in town and we do our best to find an answer. Got a question you'd like to see Patch answer? E-mail it to: terry.date@patch.com

What is the Hawthorne Brook Neighborhood Association and where is the brook located?

The neighborhood group formed in the wake of disastrous flooding in Swampscott on Oct. 4, said member Roseann Mark.

The group has 20 very active members and about 30 members total.

The neighborhood includes homes and condos south of Tedesco Country Club, within an area encompassed by Salem Street, Humphrey Street and Crossman Avenue.

Within that area are numerous streets, among them, Linden Avenue, Stanley Road and Dennison Avenue.

The association's main goal at this time is to modernize an inadequate and neglected drainage system, the association says. 

The citizens group has consulted with a lawyer and is working with selectmen to prevent future flooding.

A key document the town and neighborhood is using as a common reference is a drainage report that the town commissioned.

This report, by McKenzie Engineering, was submitted to the town in 2011, a week before torrential rains in the early morning Oct. 4 triggered widespread flooding that inundated Swampscott basements.

The report recommends further study but says the pond at Tedesco Country Club functions as a flood-control body and is operating at an estimated 35-45 percent capacity due to sedimentation build up.

The pond accepts water from approximately 215 acres nearby, much of it impervious, paved land.  

"It extends northerly to Weatherly Drive (near Loring Tower) in Salem and the , westerly to Alvin Road and Worcester Avenue and southerly to Parsons Drive and portions of the Tedesco Country Club," the report states.

Hawthorne Brook flows mainly underground and extends from Salem, in the Danvers Road vicinity, through Swampscott, and empties into the ocean via a culvert near the Swampscott/Marblehead town line.