SALEM – To Selectman Chairman Elizabeth Roth, spring floods are a matter of when, not if. Nearly two years after the Mother’s Day flood that closed dozens of local roads and displaced entire neighborhoods of residents, Roth said she’s instructing emergency departments to prepare for flooding as historic snowfall levels affect waterways this spring.

“On a day like today, it seems like a flood is the least of our worries, but who knows once the spring rains come,” she said. “We should prepare for it as a ‘when’ and not an ‘if.’”

In the 2006 flood, Salem spent $458,539 during the emergency and aftermath before it began applying for reimbursements from FEMA.

Residents should also prepare though, Roth said, to make sure they are ready ahead of time with pumps and other material to lessen damage to their homes.

Roth said directions from the town’s Flood Mitigation Action Committee should make a difference to improve services and communications often already taxed during extended emergency periods as residents may need to respond to neighborhood evacuations.

“The Reverse-911 call service did not work as effectively as it might have,” Roth said. “That was something that stuck in my mind after the Mother’s Day floods, and I know FMAC is addressing that.”

The committee, created a year ago to begin assessing emergency services and prepare guidelines to minimize damage from future flooding, has looked at several areas to improve the flood situation in the Spicket River watershed.

Among communications guidelines requested by the committee are flood updates and road closure information to be available on the town Web site. On March 15, taxpayers at the second deliberative session supported a plan pushed by the committee to spend $100,000 to clean out and assess catch basin and drainage infrastructure within the town.

The cleanup and studies are just initial steps to make the town eligible for additional funds from FEMA in the event of a flood, committee member Norbert Pestana said on the day the project passed.