Monday evening a torrent of water surprised drivers heading home on Route 4 in Epsom. Officials say the culprit was a failed beaver dam.
Flooding on New Hampshire roads because of beaver dams usually occurs when the critters' do their jobs so well that water backs up down stream. It's more unusual to have a ruptured beaver dam lead to flooding, says New Hampshire Department of Transportation spokesman Bill Boynton.
"This one may have failed his engineering test,” Boynton said. "It's a little more unusual to have something like this happen where you had something burst and then literally thousands of gallons of water pouring onto the highway."
Pembroke firefighters used a drone to spot the source of the deluge.
Boynton says road flooding from beaver dams usually happens a few times a year and that crews should be finished making repairs by Tuesday evening.