PANAMA CITY — City commissioners approved an engineering study Tuesday to find out more about flooding around Posten and Huntington bayous.
Public Works Director Neil Fravel knows where the most problematic flooding areas near the bayous are:
- Residents on Cincinnati Avenue experienced flooding in their homes this past spring.
- Areas near 21st Street around the railroad are prone to flooding.
- The intersection of St. Andrews Boulevard and Frankford Avenue also experienced flooding during severe storms.
A $193,000 study from Aracadis Inc. should provide the city more accurate information about elevation and soil conditions and also provide suggestions for ways to solve stormwater drainage. Those fixes could include improving drainage ponds, ditches and pipes to divert water, or even purchasing property in a particularly troubling area and turning the land into a park.
“In my mind it’s OK for water to sit in a park,” Fravel said. “Our number one priority at Public Works is to keep homes and businesses from being flooded. Nothing that we do is more important than that.”
The study will simulate 25-, 50- and 100-year storms using models to find out how much water could collect in these areas and factor in how much St. Andrew Bay might rise, which would affect potential plans to divert water into the bay. After the study is completed, the city will send a report to the Federal Emergency Management Administration to update flood plain maps for the city.
Seeking lower rates: A consideration for the study is improving the city’s standing with the Community Rating System, which could lower homeowners insurance for the entire city.
Community Rating officials are scheduled to conduct an analysis of the city in February. Fravel said the study likely will be completed this fall, too late to budget drainage improvements for 2015-16. Public Works, which usually has a capital improvements budget between $3.5 and $4 million, has one large drainage project set to begin within the next few weeks, replacing pipes on 19th Street, which will cost about $800,000.
In other business Tuesday:
- City attorney Nevin Zimmerman expects to have a final memorandum of understanding for the commission on the marina project to approve at the Feb. 10 meeting.
- Halley Stark was appointed to the Downtown Improvement Board to replace Pamelia Armstrong who resigned to open a new Tom’s Hotdogs.