There are a lot of people in Fort Worth who try to make sure water stays flowing and doesn't start flooding.
About 75 people on the stormwater management team check about 350 flooding hotspots across the city before, during, and after heavy rainfalls.
“Checking to make sure there’s no debris in front of the pipes," said one crew member as he checked drainage on 8000 Old Granbury Rd. in South Fort Worth.
“This is one of our low-water crossings that we have to maintain regularly," said Juan Cadena, stormwater operations officer.
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He said the road floods with pretty much every heavy rainfall and now, they have a system that alerts them 15 minutes before water gets to the road.
“We get rain gauges upstream that will let us know we’re getting a lot of rain and we can actually close this location before it actually overtops," he said.
It's why they have pre-set barricades on the side of the road.
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Another Fort Worth team is tackling long-term flooding solutions for some areas through the Hazardous Road Overtopping Mitigation (HROM) Program.
The program started in 2020 "in response to life-threatening and fatal incidents associated with flooded roads," according to the city's website.
“It entails locating high-hazard, low-water, crossings based on where water, instead of going under the roadway, winds up going over the roadway during heavy rain events," explained Justin Naylor, Fort Worth transportation and public works department senior professional engineer.
Naylor said their list has 100 high-risk areas where creeks often flood roads. It's a separate list from the 350 hotspots across the city, although there may be some overlap.
One area was Shoreview Drive off of Bomber Road, which had two recorded high-water rescues.
Naylor's team elevated the road and added bigger culverts, or pipes, to help water drain better.
He said since they finished the project last year, "We are not aware of any flooding in this area."
Naylor said they've completed two construction projects, have one under construction, and four in the design phase.
He added that construction projects aren't feasible at every high-risk area on their list, and there have been 35 safety improvements at other sites, such as guard rails, signage, striping, and/or lighting.
Funding partly comes from the stormwater utility fee on neighbors' water bills, along with grants.
