The water that pooled in Cheektowaga basements and streets after the weekend’s rainstorms led new homeowner Ann McKeown to join the frustrated and short-tempered people who filled seats at the Town Board meeting Monday night.

She explained to board members that when neighbors told her that the flooding problems have been going on for decades, she decided to take action, consider organizing fellow residents and come to the Monday meeting—where the engineer explained that it would take millions of dollars and many years to slowly fix the town’s network of small, old, overloaded storm water and sewer pipes.

“You guys need to come out and investigate these homes,” said McKeown, who said she bought her house on Allendale Road three years ago.

“You ain’t heard the last of me,” she said. “I will be back.”

Residents from other neighborhoods spoke.

Patricia Kubiak said that she lives near the Kensington Expressway and that a nearby highway ditch seems to contribute to the two years of street flooding that led her to replace a car ruined by water last year.

“When it rains, it overflows,” she said.

Charles Maciejewski, of Wellworth Place, said his months-old, unresolved protest of late charges on a tax bill he said he paid on time was compounded by water pooling on his street and the sewage in his sink.

“I have pictures of sewage flowing into my basement,” he said, waiting until the end of the meeting to hand out photos of his flooded street and laundry sink filled with brown water.

“We’re not being listened to,” he told the board.

Julian Polanski, 85, of Union Road, said he spent 10 hours cleaning up the water in his cellar Sunday.

“You are paying today for the mistakes of our forefathers in the 1940s,” he said of the storm water system. “We’re all broke. The state is broke. The trickle-down economy is coming down, and we’re all feeling it.”

Town Engineer William R. Pugh tried to soothe people. He asked to look at Maciejewski’s photos, offered to have town staff examine basements and stayed late after the meeting to talk with McKeown about how the town was slowly working to replace old clay pipes and install bigger new ones.

“I’m not going to come and wave some magic wand,” Pugh said, adding that the two or three inches of weekend rain were unusual. “That was an exceptional rain.”