Columbus officials have closed one lane of a stretch of Military Road near the northern city limits to replace a culvert that collapsed Wednesday morning.
City Public Works Director Casey Bush said a brick culvert in the southbound lane near Boman Shelton Drive collapsed at about 10 a.m., and his crews had already begun repair work to the area by noon. Bush said Tuesday’s flash flooding — about six inches of rain fell on north Columbus in less than three hours — contributed to the collapse.
Initially, city police blocked Military Road at the intersection of Ridge Road near Lion Hills Country Club to traffic. However, Bush said only about a quarter-mile of the road, from Boman Shelton to Black Creek Road, would remain restricted to one-lane access during road work, which he expected would take two days.
“Luckily it collapsed (Wednesday) and not during the rain (Tuesday) or at night,” Bush said.
City workers will replace the brick culvert with a concrete culvert, according to Bush. He said the culvert under the northbound lane had been replaced a few years ago with a concrete version and did not appear to lose any integrity from the collapse.
Bush said workers would also soon replace a brick culvert on Crescent Drive that is beginning to wash out. He expects to complete that project by next week.
Ditch capacity maxed
Despite flooding that overwhelmed drainage ditches, backed up water several inches high along residential streets and even flooded some homes, Bush said Tuesday’s weather event did not reflect drainage deficiencies in north Columbus.
Three major ditches — in the Holly Hills, Bluecutt Road and North Haven areas — adequately drain water from the area, he said, along with smaller trenches and ditches in neighborhoods. Bush said crews regularly clean out beaver dams and other obstructions to drainage corridors, but on Tuesday, all of those corridors were clean.
“On Tuesday, it was just heavy rain, not a drainage issue,” Bush said. “There’s not a ditch in Columbus that could hold that amount of rain. Had it been regular rainfall, (the drainage network in the area) would have handled it just fine.”
Isolated pockets of problems
A few residents in isolated pockets of north Columbus say they do not enjoy the same drainage system integrity in their neighborhoods as Bush purports as the north Columbus norm.
McArthur Drive resident Alisha Anderson, who has lived on the street since 2009, acknowledged Tuesday’s flooding was worse than usual, but “usual” was still less than acceptable. She said two small ditches in her neighborhood were not wide enough or deep enough to handle any significant rainfall and drainage canals along the streetside — which she said are in city right-of-way — are often clogged with debris.
As a result, Anderson said water backs up on the streets and in the yards after a substantial rain, and in many cases the stagnant water seeps into the soggy ground and causes sewage to stink.
Anderson said people in the neighborhood have called city officials for years about the problem to no avail.
“It’s getting to the point to where I feel like I’m living in the country,” Anderson said.
A longtime 22nd Street North resident, Mary Erby, told a similar story. She said she had implored the city for more than 30 years to improve substandard drainage in her neighborhood, asking specifically for a more substantial cement trench to replace the narrow dirt trench in place to drain water from the area.
When Tuesday’s torrent completely submerged her street and came close to flooding houses, Erby said it reinvigorated her years-long effort.
“We’re at a loss,” she said. “We don’t know what to do. Something needs to be done because we don’t want water getting into our houses. We’re not in a flood zone, but it floods every time it rains hard at all.”
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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