If it wasn't SO pitiful; the end result

at approximately 6:00 PM Todd Wagner called my house to ask me questions on the flooding problem that we have on the street we live on. I've taken many pictures which I will post on this blog so you can see the problem of which we deal with every year.

I explained to Mr. Wagner that I believe the problem could be solved quite easily by increasing the size of the internal dimensions of the storm water drain culverts under the driveways. Currently we have probably 14" drains under the driveways but since they are made of concrete the inside dimension is probably 12". I asked about metal culverts of which the excuse used for not wanting them under the driveways was a nonproductive fallacy. The excuse for wanting the concrete ones is that the metal ones can bend if you run over one with a truck or something. There is NO way a truck that size is going to turn into any of our driveways up on this street.

Of course I will taking this issue up with the department that handles the storm water drain off problem but the end result was that the work order concerning this issue goes on the "unfunded" list in such an order that possible structural damaged gets worked on first then by order of city importance.

This is clearly conjecture on my part, but since we don't live near city center we will be quite low on the list of "needed" repairs, but I do thank Mr. Wagner for returning my call and for following what I was suggesting quite closely. Somehow he was looking at some topographical map of this area as I was speaking as he would make comments based on what I has said that led me to believe he was paying much more attention then many of our city people. He knew that my house was probably the highest on the block, that the drainage ditch angle drops quite a bit after the runoff leaves the east side of my driveway culvert. He knew things about this area that he wouldn't normally know unless he was either up here talking with me in person or he was using some sort of map that the city has had drawn up listing all these variables.

For my west side neighbor I sincerely hope they get some sort of a priority on this before the rains come next year. Right now the house is vacant, with a contract pending and I'm not quite sure the purchaser realizes that the river flows through the garage to this house and out to the back yard where the Doling run off pond assembles on the back half of my property, the Christian Schools property and a few of the neighbors in the newer houses on the back section of my land.

I hope to have the pictures loaded up this weekend.

If it wasn't SO pitiful

Three years ago when we bought our northend home I noticed during times of heavy rainfall that our street would flood out as the drainage ditches just to the west of my home up to Lyon Street aren't deep enough to handle the capacity of water that drains down from Kearney.
Like any taxpayer I reported the situation via an online link and waited for ANY response. Fast forward one year and the same situation occurred and I once again filled out the online form to report this problem. The problem was SOOOO bad that my next door neighbor had a fishing stream flowing through his garage.
This year the problem has been exasperated by massive amounts of rain in the area and a couple of times I measured 4" of water flowing across the street in torrents. I wasn't even aware that white water rafting existed on the streets of Springfield.

Today I called the public works department and the lady I talked to told me the reason this problem isn't fixed is because the city doesn't have the funds to make these needed repairs. It seems quite evident the city has the funds for streetscapes down by the News Leader offices and for intersection improvements and various other "make work" programs but it doesn't have money for people who are "flooding" out on the northend of town.

I put a call into Todd Wagner, the department head, and he wasn't in his office so I left a message time will only tell if I get a reply.

Some might say that I only requested this service for personal gain, however my house actually sits above the street and it would need to rain quite a bit for my house to be effected. As any good neighbor would do I am also trying to protect those around me. It doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to deepen the channels of which the water flows through on its way to Doling Park. As I'm writing this the manhole cover just west of my property for the storm drain is spouting about seven inch water plumes out from around the cover.

The skies just open again and I think I should start a new fad here in Springfield called "street surfing" perhaps I should even charge for the availability of the event, then next year we can hold a street surfing competition during the times of heavy rain and charge admission to the event.