WATERLOO - Mayor Tim Hurley was dealing with a crisis of his own Sunday while fielding calls from angry residents with flooded basements.

"I had water in my basement, so I can empathize," said Hurley, who was in no mood to deal with people taking the city government to task over Mother Nature's doings. "I lost my temper because (residents said) it was all the city's fault."

City Council members also were deluged with calls when torrential rainfall caused water to back up into streets and sanitary sewers to overload and pop manhole covers.

But Councilman Harold Getty said he felt city workers in the Sewer Department and Waste Management Services did a good job.

"The pumps were out and doing what they were supposed to do," Getty said. "There's no system in the world I'm aware of that can take care of that amount of water in that amount of time."

Hurley and Waste Management Services Superintendent Larry Smith both noted the sewer backups were not caused by water flooding streets. It came from sanitary sewer system, which was overloaded by storm water infiltration and residents who put their footing tiles into their floor drains.

Smith said the sanitary sewer system, which normally carries about 13 million gallons of waste water daily, was transporting up to 67 million gallons of water to thesewage treatment plant over each of the past two days. He said most residents can avoid the sewer backups by installing backflow preventers, which actually are required by city ordinance.

Meanwhlie, Hurley said the city will continue to work on other infrastructure, such as replacing sewers when streets are rebuilt and including money in the capital improvements lan for watershed projects.

"We know our infrastructure is old," Hurley told the council members. "When we get to the point of talking about storm water management fees, keep this in mind for the potential to do things better."

Contact Tim Jamison at (319) 291-1577 or tim.jamison@wcfcourier.com.