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Wilmore council hires engineers to scope citywide stormwater study after rare downtown flood
Summary
GRW Engineers told the council the recent downtown flooding was not caused by the new sanitary sewer and described the event as an extremely rare, roughly five-inch storm; staff said GRW will produce a scoped condition assessment and modeling proposal and the council agreed to focus on Lexington Avenue and Main Street in two weeks.
The Wilmore City Council on Monday heard from GRW Engineers, which told council members the recently installed sanitary sewer was not the cause of the downtown floods and offered to scope a citywide stormwater condition assessment.
"The quick answer to it is it did not," said the GRW representative, Alan Blaine, describing the sanitary sewer work and emphasizing that the sanitary and storm systems are separate. GRW staff asked the council to authorize a condition assessment and stormwater modeling to identify priority fixes across town.
Engineers described the rain event as roughly five inches and, in discussion, characterized it as an exceptionally rare occurrence. "Approximately 1000 year storm event," one engineer said during the briefing, noting design standards typically track a 100-year event and that systems are not sized for such extreme rainfall.
The council directed staff to return with a scope and requested focused material on Lexington Avenue and Main Street at the next meeting in two weeks. Council members and staff emphasized that while a citywide engineering study may identify long-term mitigation and funding needs, many property-level damages will require individual remedies and that any full construction program would be costly and likely funded through grants.
Provenance: topicintro SEG 173, topfinish SEG 885
