MCLENNAN COUNTY, Texas (KXXV) — McLennan County is working to improve drainage systems along several creek corridors after last month's heavy rains caused damage to culverts and channel ways across the area.
The City of Waco has monitored Waco Creek, Cottonwood Creek, Barrons Branch, and Flat Creek for years. Ryan Dirker with City Emergency Management said those creek systems serve as major drainage arteries, moving water into the Brazos River — and that residents living near them are at risk of flooding.
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"Waco is no stranger to flooding. It's been flooding here since Waco was first founded all the way back in the early 1800s," Dirker said.
Last month's heavy rains damaged several of those creek systems, creating an opportunity to reassess how repairs are made.
"But with this particular flood last month, again, there was some damage to several culverts to several channel ways they're going to have to be repaired, and what that will give us an opportunity to do is kind of redesign the projects," Dirker said.
Erosion and new city development also play a role in how well the drainage system performs over time. Dirker said knowing when flooding could happen is highly situational and depends heavily on how saturated the ground already is.
"If it rained 3 inches in 3 hours, that's something of concern certainly, but had it been dry for a month before then, then the ground would be able to absorb a lot of that water. Now if it's a situation like today where it's been raining a lot over the last month and the grounds are more saturated, you're going to get a lot more of that runoff very quickly," Dirker said.
Dirker said the rise on Flat Creek led to unexpected flooding on I-35 — something officials did not anticipate but are now working to address.
"What we didn't know was specifically how a lot of the surface roads would react. That's a little bit different. That can affect drainage differently if there were things clogging the storm drains, if there had been rain beforehand," Dirker said.
The county makes several weather checks throughout the day and has a new hazard mitigation plan aimed at improving drainage systems along those creeks.
The City of Waco is also proposing a 20-cent increase to the drainage fee, which the city says is meant to help maintain current drainage infrastructure and fund new improvements ranging from underground to surface repairs across the city. A public hearing on the increase is set for the first Tuesday in August.
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