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RICHMOND -
Update 8/27 6:30 p.m.:
City officials tell CBS 6 the system was working as it's designed to do. The problem is, they say, the combined water and sewer system can only handle a certain amount of water. If storms exceed that, that's when the area starts to fill up.
Monday's downpour was nothing like Ernesto, but it was enough to shutdown Battery Park, yet again.
Thursday, contractors were still cleaning and disinfecting the area. An area that City officials say hasn't seen the last floods.
"We cannot build infrastructure according to worse case scenario, I mean, that would be just really cost prohibitive," says Angela Fountain of Richmond Public Utilities.
But would it? Right now, City officials say the combined water and sewer system can only handle a certain amount of rain. And according to them, FEMA would not approve upgrades but only replace the pipe, at a cost of over $30 million.
So now what? We put that question to City Councilmember Chris Hilbert, who represents the Battery Park neighborhood.
"We put the infrastructure in that they'd indicated but this is a whole new day. We have stimulus dollars that are available now."
Right now it's unclear what's needed to make improvements and how much it will cost.
CBS 6 spoke with a FEMA representative, she tells us the sewer system should be functioning properly. She says what happened in Battery Park is not related to the sewer system that was repaired with federal funding.
Original 8/26 11 p.m.:
Monday's early morning downpour in Richmond caused flooding and some sewage backup in Battery Park, just three months after it was reopened in the wake of catastrophic flooding caused by Tropical Storm Ernesto in September, 2006.
The low-lying area had roughly $30 million in drainage work done after Ernesto, including a vast main drain tunnel, most of it paid for by a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Administration. The park was closed for more than two years.
"Do we have a warranty on this?" asked resident George Johnson, a longtime coach in Battery Park. "Who's going to pay for this?"
It's unclear how much rain fell in the park starting at about 2 a.m. because the heaviest downpours were in pockets. City councilman Chris Hilbert believes rain was falling at a rate of three inches an hour. Department of Utilities spokeswoman Angela Fountain said it's believed to have been a once-every-50-years rain event.
Mud and debris left by high water indicates it was about six feet deep in the lowest part of the park, near the childrens' playground and basketball courts. That's where sewage backed up, Fountain confirmed.
Workers from Atlas Industrial Services were sent by the city to start cleaning up early Monday. The Arthur Ashe tennis courts were cleaned up first.
It wasn't until Wednesday that the Atlas crew hosed the mud and debris off the basketball courts and then blasted it with a water-and-bleach solution. All the mulch had to be excavated from the children's playground and the surrounding area had to be scraped clean.
Fountain said that kind of flooding was and will be expected whenever there's a heavy rain like that. "A lot of the funding, as you know, came from FEMA," she said, "and one of the mandates we got was that we couldn't install anything greater than was already there."
Hilbert said the grant was such that if the city had wanted to upgrade the system to handle heavy rains like Monday's, FEMA's grant would've been withdrawn and they would've had to pay for the entire project out of city funds. He said that didn't make sense then or now, and he believes FEMA's grant process needs changing. Hilbert also apologized to Battery Park residents.
Coach Johnson is furious at what he sees as a huge amount of money going down the drain. "We're getting ready to have a big storm over the weekend," Johnson said. "What are they going to come back Monday and clean up? No, this was supposed to be taken care of."
Fountain said her department acted quickly to clean up the courts because they knew residents had been without their park for a long time, and that there were tennis tournaments Monday evening.
Johnson believes the city hustled to clean it up because it showed how poorly the expensive new system performed.
The rims were taken off the basketball courts to keep people from playing on them. On Wednesday, caution tape around the playground was broken and lying on the ground. All the tennis courts were open Wednesday. By evening, people were playing on most of them. But the smell of sewage lingered in the air.
CBS 6 removed a manhole covers at the edge of one of the tennis courts and went inside the main drainage line. A few feet away, the masonry of a trunk line entering the main channel was broken and the earth around it showed erosion from moving water.
At the southern end of the park, where the flood was the deepest, the main drainage pit appeared to be mostly full of mud.
Fountain said most of the cleanup is done. The mulch for the playground isn't expected to arrive until after this weekend's expected storm, she said, in case there's more flooding.
City officials tell CBS 6 the system was working as it's designed to do. The problem is, they say, the combined water and sewer system can only handle a certain amount of water. If storms exceed that, that's when the area starts to fill up.
Monday's downpour was nothing like Ernesto, but it was enough to shutdown Battery Park, yet again.
Thursday, contractors were still cleaning and disinfecting the area. An area that City officials say hasn't seen the last floods.
"We cannot build infrastructure according to worse case scenario, I mean, that would be just really cost prohibitive," says Angela Fountain of Richmond Public Utilities.
But would it? Right now, City officials say the combined water and sewer system can only handle a certain amount of rain. And according to them, FEMA would not approve upgrades but only replace the pipe, at a cost of over $30 million.
So now what? We put that question to City Councilmember Chris Hilbert, who represents the Battery Park neighborhood.
"We put the infrastructure in that they'd indicated but this is a whole new day. We have stimulus dollars that are available now."
Right now it's unclear what's needed to make improvements and how much it will cost.
CBS 6 spoke with a FEMA representative, she tells us the sewer system should be functioning properly. She says what happened in Battery Park is not related to the sewer system that was repaired with federal funding.
Original 8/26 11 p.m.:
Monday's early morning downpour in Richmond caused flooding and some sewage backup in Battery Park, just three months after it was reopened in the wake of catastrophic flooding caused by Tropical Storm Ernesto in September, 2006.
The low-lying area had roughly $30 million in drainage work done after Ernesto, including a vast main drain tunnel, most of it paid for by a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Administration. The park was closed for more than two years.
"Do we have a warranty on this?" asked resident George Johnson, a longtime coach in Battery Park. "Who's going to pay for this?"
It's unclear how much rain fell in the park starting at about 2 a.m. because the heaviest downpours were in pockets. City councilman Chris Hilbert believes rain was falling at a rate of three inches an hour. Department of Utilities spokeswoman Angela Fountain said it's believed to have been a once-every-50-years rain event.
Mud and debris left by high water indicates it was about six feet deep in the lowest part of the park, near the childrens' playground and basketball courts. That's where sewage backed up, Fountain confirmed.
Workers from Atlas Industrial Services were sent by the city to start cleaning up early Monday. The Arthur Ashe tennis courts were cleaned up first.
It wasn't until Wednesday that the Atlas crew hosed the mud and debris off the basketball courts and then blasted it with a water-and-bleach solution. All the mulch had to be excavated from the children's playground and the surrounding area had to be scraped clean.
Fountain said that kind of flooding was and will be expected whenever there's a heavy rain like that. "A lot of the funding, as you know, came from FEMA," she said, "and one of the mandates we got was that we couldn't install anything greater than was already there."
Hilbert said the grant was such that if the city had wanted to upgrade the system to handle heavy rains like Monday's, FEMA's grant would've been withdrawn and they would've had to pay for the entire project out of city funds. He said that didn't make sense then or now, and he believes FEMA's grant process needs changing. Hilbert also apologized to Battery Park residents.
Coach Johnson is furious at what he sees as a huge amount of money going down the drain. "We're getting ready to have a big storm over the weekend," Johnson said. "What are they going to come back Monday and clean up? No, this was supposed to be taken care of."
Fountain said her department acted quickly to clean up the courts because they knew residents had been without their park for a long time, and that there were tennis tournaments Monday evening.
Johnson believes the city hustled to clean it up because it showed how poorly the expensive new system performed.
The rims were taken off the basketball courts to keep people from playing on them. On Wednesday, caution tape around the playground was broken and lying on the ground. All the tennis courts were open Wednesday. By evening, people were playing on most of them. But the smell of sewage lingered in the air.
CBS 6 removed a manhole covers at the edge of one of the tennis courts and went inside the main drainage line. A few feet away, the masonry of a trunk line entering the main channel was broken and the earth around it showed erosion from moving water.
At the southern end of the park, where the flood was the deepest, the main drainage pit appeared to be mostly full of mud.
Fountain said most of the cleanup is done. The mulch for the playground isn't expected to arrive until after this weekend's expected storm, she said, in case there's more flooding.
