Sav Morn News: Summer rain flooding on coast seems to be getting worse over years
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Savannah's stormwater team needs more trucks, bigger crews and multimillion-dollar projects
Savannah's stormwater team wants to be less reactive, and more proactive. But it needs a dedicated fund to do so.
Savannah Morning News
- The City of Savannah has seen drainage work orders more than double this year due to heavy rainfall.
- City officials are pushing for a stormwater utility fund to better maintain the drainage system and reduce reliance on contractors.
- Current resources are strained, forcing crews to prioritize pipe repairs over other maintenance like mowing canals.
Last year, the City of Savannah received more than 500 work orders for drainage issues. This year, that number tops it at more than 1,200. And it's still only September.
The more than double increase signals how this summer's downpour stretched the city's stormwater resources, said Savannah's Director of Stormwater Management Zack Hoffman. In August, Savannah received 11.79 inches of rain, nearly double the 30-year average, according to the city's press release. Historic pipes quickly became inundated and backlogged, leading to a record number of road cave-ins and sewage spills.
"It's had us running crews out there, working a lot of overtime," said Hoffman. And it wasn't just the amount of rain that strained the system, but also the fact that it arrived in high-intensity spurts.
"We can handle that rain over days and days in a month," said Hoffman. "As long as it doesn't all come down... in a day."
More: Pooler neighborhoods still dealt with flooding in August
And it's not just something Savannah is seeing. Heavier rains in shorter time periods are becoming more common due to climate change.
"We know unequivocally that it is raining with greater intensity now on average," said Marshall Shepherd, director of the University of Georgia's Atmospheric Sciences program. "When it rains hard, it's raining harder than it did several decades ago."
These increasingly high-intensity downpours underscore the city's push for a stormwater utility fund, which would create a direct funding source for drainage resources. But even without those factors, resources are already strained.
"The expectations are elevated every year since I have been here for 13 years," said Hoffman. Without a stormwater utility fund, "I don't know how we're going to be able to keep up."
More: The Brown Side of Coastal Flooding: From Savannah to Brunswick, sewage spills on the rise
De-clogging Savannah one order at a time
Savannah's drainage system is two-layered—a snaking canal network above and hundreds of miles of stormwater pipes below—and both must be clear for water to flow.
For pipes, that can mean sticking cameras or smoking it out to figure out where the obstruction or fault is. For the canals, it means mowing. Lots and lots of mowing. City hydrologists have noted the canals can handle more volume by having less vegetation impeding water flow, said Savannah Mayor Van Johnson at his Tuesday press conference.
But maintaining those ditches and canals requires resources.
"You can't expect the miles and miles of ditches in the city to be maintained on a routine basis by a couple of weed eaters." This summer, the stormwater department enlisted mowing equipment from the city greenscapes department.
But this year's record number of drainage pipe issues busied city crews so much that mowing often had to take a backseat, Hoffman said. Curb inlets crushed by cars have been an especially frequent problem this year.
"We have really had to prioritize; we have limited resources," said Hoffman. When funding is available, they bring in contractors—"a lot of contractors"—though outsourcing is not something he hopes will be needed as much with a stormwater utility fund. "I think we can heavily reduce our reliance on them by having in-house staff [and] maintaining our own equipment."
Becoming proactive
Background: As Savannah Council considers stormwater fee program, city to seek public input
This summer's persistent pours were primarily driven by easily explainable weather factors, namely moist airflow coming off the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean creating a ripe atmospheric setup for heavy rains.
But these atmospheric conditions that represent the natural variability of weather, and produce the persistent rainfall Savannah experienced in August, are happening against the backdrop of climate change-induced worsening rainstorms.
As the city's stormwater team faces these varying rain-related factors, it is also seeking to be more "proactive" in its maintenance, said Hoffman.
That's where the potential stormwater utility could come in, to increase the number of jet vacuum trucks from three to six, boost those crews from two to five, and add a second TV truck that can put a camera into a pipe for surveying.
"We are so reactive currently," Hoffman said. But if "a stormwater utility is implemented," they can change that.
The city is building a database of order histories to better predict issues, while building out 16 active stormwater capital projects designed to handle 100-year flood events.
As it assesses the city's dimpled landscape of 24 drainage basins, the team has so far modeled 10 of its major ones. That predictive modeling is guiding the capital program, where major projects are underway in flood-prone areas such as the west side's Springfield Canal drainage basin and the Casey Canal drainage basin in the Habersham Village area.
"Unfortunately, right now, we're work-order driven," said Hoffman. But "we want to make big, multimillion dollar improvements to the system."
Evan Lasseter is the city and county government reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at ELas...@gannett.com. Jillian Magtoto covers climate change and the environment in coastal Georgia. You can reach her at jmag...@gannett.com.
This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Green South Foundation, Prentice Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners.