Escambia County moving forward on flood repairs
- October 14, 2014
- / Shannon Nickinson
- / training-development
Escambia County officials are moving slowly but surely toward repairing the infrastructure damaged by this April’s flooding.
County Administrator Jack Brown said that as repair efforts move forward, staff are looking toward prevention for the future as well.
Brown says that means collaborating with City of Pensacola officials to maximize, where possible, available resources for projects that would do the most good for the greatest number of citizens.
Brown says it is his way of fighting the close-in battle and the long-term fight.
“The county has responded robustly to issues out there,” Brown says. “We’ve got projects going through the bidding process right now. There are some areas where funding is pending. There are some private property acquisition issues, but also with private property you need permission to do that.”
Brown’s staff will put together a white paper to give to the stormwater advisory team to get their input, then craft recommendations to go to County Commissioners for their take.
That process is still weeks from fruition, he said.
In the meantime:
— On Sept. 25, Escambia County Commissioners signed off on a $19,827,454 Federal Emergency Management agency grant application to relocate the residents of the flood-plagued Forest Creek Apartments.
The complex on Patton Drive was built in an old creek bed and sits, essentially, in the bottom of a bowl.
“It does look like the owners are going to move those folks,” Brown says. If the FEMA grant is approved, the county eventually would take ownership of the property and use it for flood mitigation, said county spokesman Bill Pearson.
— A new bridge is being designed to replace the one that washed out on Old Corry Field Road, says County Engineers Joy Blackmon.
[caption id="attachment_6451" align="alignright" width="300"]
A new bridge is being designed for Old Corry Field Road, as seen here in May, after an historic storm washed it out.[/caption]
“We have to mitigate that and not just put it back to the way it was before” to prevent future blowouts of the bridge, Blackmon said.
That project will be funded by the Federal Highway Administration, Blackmon said. The FHWA estimates damage to the bridge at $1.2 million. It also is a major area for communication trucks and fiber optics going through that area.
Brown said construction of the new bridge is set to begin in December and should be completed in April 2015.
— Crescent Lake has what Brown calls “significant issues there we are working through.”
— Brown also is looking at ways to encourage — but not mandate — low-impact development planning, “not to where its mandatory but where you have incentives to encourage people to build low impact.”
Low-impact development is more expensive on the front end, Brown says, but it does pay a lot of benefits.
“What the science shows is you’re better off to treat stormwater closest to the point that it falls,” he says. “The idea is to look at how can we make it more of a European model.”
That philosophy dovetails with what architect David Waggoner told local officials when he visited the area after the April deluge. Waggoner is credited with leading the team that created the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
It uses canals, wet parks, rain gardens and other features to treat stormwater where it falls as much as possible.
A new bridge is being designed for Old Corry Field Road, as seen here in May, after an historic storm washed it out.[/caption]
“We have to mitigate that and not just put it back to the way it was before” to prevent future blowouts of the bridge, Blackmon said.
That project will be funded by the Federal Highway Administration, Blackmon said. The FHWA estimates damage to the bridge at $1.2 million. It also is a major area for communication trucks and fiber optics going through that area.
Brown said construction of the new bridge is set to begin in December and should be completed in April 2015.
— Crescent Lake has what Brown calls “significant issues there we are working through.”
— Brown also is looking at ways to encourage — but not mandate — low-impact development planning, “not to where its mandatory but where you have incentives to encourage people to build low impact.”
Low-impact development is more expensive on the front end, Brown says, but it does pay a lot of benefits.
“What the science shows is you’re better off to treat stormwater closest to the point that it falls,” he says. “The idea is to look at how can we make it more of a European model.”
That philosophy dovetails with what architect David Waggoner told local officials when he visited the area after the April deluge. Waggoner is credited with leading the team that created the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
It uses canals, wet parks, rain gardens and other features to treat stormwater where it falls as much as possible.
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