[To the Village from an Oak Avenue resident]
I know there have been several emails, pictures, and plans over the years to fix the issues around our block of 2400 Oak Ave. But for the second time already this year, not to mention the several times over just the past couple of years, we are having severe flooding issues on this block.
The last flood in April caused significant home damage to several homes including mine. As a resident, I do not enjoy waking up with anxiety every time it rains, wondering if I am going to have do deal with another flood in my house, the monetary and property loss, not being able to get down the street or have my kids use their backyard, because it is under a foot of water. We are not in a flood zone and this is occurring too frequently.
This is all fixable. I've attached pictures again. And I need to know what actions are being taken fix this, not what further evaluation is being done, it seems like this has been evaluated long enough.
[From the Village to Oak Avenue residents]
Thank you for sending your emails and enclosing the photographs of yesterday’s flooding event. The Village understands your concerns as well as the frustrations you have experienced with the three most recent flooding events we encountered over the past two months. Rain events such as these create a condition where intake and conveyance capacity of the storm sewer system that serves your neighborhood, and the downstream system as well, is exceeded. You are not alone with these problems and the Village is making every effort towards trying relieving areas such as your neighborhood from stormwater flooding. However, with rain events as yesterday’s there is great difficulties for the Village to provide enough protection to prevent or keep properties from flooding. We received a total of 3.5-inches of rain over six-hour period (4 AM to 10 AM), with 1.65-inches alone in a 30-minute period (4:15 AM to 4:45 AM), which overloaded the Village’s storm sewer system and the local watercourses in which these systems discharge into.
A quick and small improvement would be to install a private storm sewer and/or a by-pass drainage swale within the rear and side yards of your property. The Village has a cost-sharing program to help property owners with absorbing some of the costs involved for this private infrastructure. Please keep in mind these types of drainage conduits would function adequately in low or steady rain events but would not provide flooding protection during storm episodes that we experienced in April or yesterday; they are simply not intended to function in this manner. However, private rear yard storm sewer are to provide assistance in draining the rear yards and avoid standing water from occurring 24-36 hours after the rain subsided.
We are still moving forward with stormwater projects within the Village and have completed two projects this year. Our commitment and goal is to work on solutions for flooding throughout the Village as you may know, storm events of this type (hard and quick rainfall) seem to occur more frequently than in the past. We have a neighborhood mailing being sent out today to indicate that the conceptual project (Western/Oak Project No. 20) in the Master Stormwater Plan that proposed approximately 2,000 linear feet of 4-diameter 0.5 acre-feet storage pipe in strategic locations does not produce noticeable benefits unless supplemented with approximately 4 acre-feet of additional storage. The location(s) for this necessary additional storage still needs to be identified and acquired. I have attached a copy of this letter to expedite this information to you.
I hope I have answered some of your questions or addressed your concerns; if you have interest in examining the potential for installation a private storm infrastructure please contact me to discuss further. . .
No comments:
Post a Comment