Flooding Near Decatur High School
Decatur Metro | December 1, 2010Holy cow.
You’ve gotta see this photo that was sent into Fox5 yesterday of flooding across from Decatur High School! That’s East Maple, correct?
Geez, I didn’t realize things were quite that bad yesterday.
That’s my red car in the flood. The mechanic said it could be a total loss. The city should really do something about the drainage. This street floods WAY too easily and without notice.
That’s your car? Oh man, I’m sorry.
Thanks. It’s pretty bad. The flood came within 20 minutes of the rain starting and receded about 30 minutes after that.
Did he give you a breakdown of the parts/costs?
I’d imagine the “total loss” is because the cost of replacing the engine + ecu would be as much as the whole car. I can tell you tho, when I got my license decades ago, I swerved to avoid a deer on a dirt road in south ga, and the road was the bank of a lake, so i went in, my parents told me I’d have to go w/o a car, so i let it dry out for a week, drained the engine/fluids/replaced the plugs/distro/etc and it started right back up. ran for another 200K till it finally died!
That area is a known problem, mainly due to the fact that the drainage system is very old. A look at a topo map would show that it is the lowest area between the courthouse and the tracks.
It is also related to the flooding that occurs in front of the fire station – the storm drainage from there runs under the parking lot of the Rutledge Building and down under E Maple St. That kind of flooding happens maybe twice a year.
When the Church St and N McDonough St streetscape projects are being worked on, the entire system will be rebuilt. Part of the rebuilding was accomplished under the football field when it was redone a few years back.
Perhaps the title of this post should have been “This is why this neighborhood used to be called ‘The Bottom'”
I’ve seen water collect at that spot before. That must be the most flood-prone spot in the city.
No wonder my child called me for a ride home! I still say that wearing a raincoat and carrying an umbrella would have been smarter than wearing the usual teen uniform of a hoodie.
When you figure out how to convince a teenager to wear something they don’t want to, please let me know the secret. I just hope my teenagers make it to college before I strangle them for being sarcastic to me.
Note to self about never parking there in anything but sunny weather.
Probably a good idea. I work on that street so I don’t usually have a choice.
The city-owned drainage area between Northern and Coventry flooded yesterday. It looked at least 2-3 feet deep for a while.
If we were to build that path, would you be willing to provide a ferry service across for a small fee?
Exercise paths and soccer fields are terrific uses for flood prone areas. Society can manage to get along for a couple of weeks/days/hours a year when they aren’t accessible.
When it gets colder: an ice rink!
At about this same time I was turning around downtown to avoid driving into high water on Spring Street as it goes under the Connector. I had never seen cars on Spring St turn around and go the wrong way before, but we all did it except for the taxi that was sitting with water half way up its doors.