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sight brought hundreds of people to the Strom Thurmond Dam area, although the high river levels shortened the planned release. Even before the release, the river had overrun the downriver dams. The lower section of the Riverwalk was eventually closed as water overtook the Jesse Norman Amphitheatre and the marina. And while the river rose, the seemingly constant barrage of isolated thunderstorms caused localized flooding throughout the city. “We haven’t had many problems at all from a traffic standpoint, but the other side of the river has been dealing with some flooding issues and a clogged storm drain here and there,” says Augusta’s assistant director of traffic engineering Steve Cassell. “But really, given how much rain we’ve had, we’ve been doing remarkably well.” However, the rain is preventing a lot of work from being accomplished. Though most of Cassell’s major projects are in the bidding phase or under design, projects like the Georgia Department of Transportation’s widening of Wrightsboro Road have slowed to a crawl. And the regular, ongoing maintenance projects have been severely affected as well. “We can’t fill potholes in the rain and we can’t stripe roads in the rain,” he says. “There are a lot of maintenance activities that we do on a daily basis that are being pushed off.” When the heavy rains do overrun the storm sewers and flood an intersection, Cassell says it’s the Sheriff’s Department that takes the lead by closing the intersection. “You basically block the road off, wait and it drains off,” he says. “Everything I’ve seen so far eventually drains. By the time we mobilize, get barricades out and close it down, the water’s gone.” Some areas, however, are continually plagued with flooding issues, though the solutions aren’t always popular. Two years ago, Columbia County drew considerable criticism for a drainage project in Springlakes. Many residents of the Martinez subdivision thought the project was excessive and unsightly. Over the last few weeks, that area has been one of the hardest hit, and according to Clayton, who steered the project through the contentious neighborhood association meetings, the construction performed as it was designed to. “All in all, it held up well and did just what it was supposed to do,” he says. “They had several significant events in there over that time period and the water didn’t go across the top of the roads. That was the intent of what we did up there.” The Springlakes situation serves to illustrate just how touchy issues involving rain and runoff can be. 18JULY2013
“Stormwater issues, particularly when you have the kind of rains we’ve been having, become hot issues in a hurry because people are affected by them,” Clayton says. “And there’s a little strip that runs from the Crawford Creek area through Springlakes and over to the West Lake area that just seems to attract those heavy thunderstorms.” The term “hundred year event” has been thrown around quite a bit lately, though Clayton says it’s a little misleading. Basically, it’s just a way of saying that you stand a one percent chance in every one year of having a rain event of that magnitude. “But doggone it, we’ve had quite a few of them,” he says. “I know one place one night that got five and a half inches of rain in 45 minutes. You’re probably looking at a 250 year event there for that one spot.” Clayton recommends people who haven’t flooded take a practical look at how their home is located versus the road. If the road were to pond, he asks, would you flood? “Flood insurance is cheap, but it is really expensive if you don’t have it,” he says. Tucker, who was already conducting a flood insurance awareness campaign when the stormy weather hit, says it’s not too late to purchase flood insurance. “It’s going to happen again,” she says. “It’s too late for what’s already happened, but go ahead — it’s 30 days to go into effect, but we’ve still got a lot of hurricane season left.” Tucker estimates that between 911, 311, email and phone calls, Columbia County has received over 100 notifications about flooding issues. Even some swimming pools have collapsed due to the saturated ground. Though the rain pattern seems to be dissipating, Tucker warns that the longer we have the wet weather, the less severe the weather has to be to be destructive. “Normally, it would take a wind gust of severe thunderstorm strength, which is 58 miles an hour or greater, to topple a tree, but we wouldn’t have to have anything to that level now,” she says. “A 15-‐25 mile an hour gust could do it.” And because the ground is saturated, the water that does fall quickly runs off into storm drains and creeks. The Augusta Canal, which starts at the Headgates at Columbia County’s Savannah Rapids Pavilion and supplies most of Augusta’s drinking water, receives water from three separate tributaries in addition to the Savannah River — Reed Creek, Rock Creek and Rae’s Creek. “When we’ve got a lot of excess flow coming in though the creeks, then we have to adjust the gates at the front end to reduce the amount of water we’re taking in from the river,” says Allen Saxon, assistant director of facility operations for the Augusta Utilities. “It’s just a little bit more of a balancing AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
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