Infrastructure Asset Management – Edmond, Oklahoma Deals with Flooding

On Thursday, the 2nd of July, Edmond, Oklahoma experienced torrential rain which caused a large amount of flood damage in certain areas of the city.

Cars were stranded and buildings receiving flooring and furniture damage.

City officials admit that Edmond needs to improve its stormwater drainage.

The problems have been surveyed and noted, but no work has been done as yet.

The Edmond Sun reports:

“We knew we had issues with the old infrastructure,” Lamb said. “And we needed a place for it to go before we upgraded the storm sewer because it was backing up at the railroad.” The storm pipes are nearly 60 years old, he said.

“We invested in the detention pond and the boxes underneath the railroad because it’s important to get the water away from downtown,” Lamb said.

The city has not invested in further drainage studies because it will need the city tears up downtown and there are financial constraints on capital projects.

The city would have to tear up the alleys because that’s where the storm sewer is located, Lamb said.

“We have not engaged in the engineering or the construction of a collection storm sewer system at this point,” Lamb said. He said the City of Edmond will address the flooding issue.

“It’s just now not cued up for a project,” Lamb said.

It’s good that Edmond authorities have identified the problems, along with potential solutions, but it’s difficult to do what’s necessary under the present circumstances.

Inframanage.com notes that the infrastructure asset management of storm sewers can be problematic on several fronts:

• Service Levels – storm sewers give a level of protection up to a design storm – what is acceptable protection versus what landowners are prepared to pay for is always a trade-off.
  
• Future Demand – with climate change, many areas are experiencing changes in rainfall patterns and storm intensity.  The challenge is how to merge these changes into the design of assets that should last 100 plus years.  There is never enough data, which has the potential to cause the risk of over or under design.

  The availability of secondary flow paths and the amount of hard surfacing are also areas subject to change that need to be examined in Future Demand analysis.

• Risk Management – the issues of design protection and climate change variation also call for risk management assessment.

As always, developing an integrated infrastructure asset management plan will give a good basis for decision-making and examining the necessary trade-offs for storm sewer networks.