09/06/2005 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 9/6/2005 ® The Sanitary Systems Supervisor encountered slow traffic on flooded roads on his way in. He went directly to Lebern Lift Station where he found high water, 18' (normal is 7'), in the wet well and reacted by immediately turning on the 6" bypass pump. At this time, due to the immediate heavy rainfall, basements had already been flooded. A laborer arrived at this time and was sent immediately to Dover Lift Station where he found 22' (normal is 7'} and that one of the pumps had not come on automatically as it should have. He immediately turned it to direct mode and it pumped 100%. He then proceeded to set up a portable 4" pump on Blossom Blvd. that is stored at the Dover Lift Station. While more workers were enroute to the Waste Water Treatment Plant from home, the sanitary sewer supervisor drove to Dover Lift Station and helped set up an additional 4" portable pump on Blossom Blvd. As the workers arrived they were instructed to take five additional 4" pumps and two 2" pumps to pumping locations throughout the City. These pumps continued operating until all basement water had receded. In a normal bypass situation, water is pumped from sanitary sewers into the storm sewer system. During this storm we found that both systems were completely full and there was nowhere to pump the water to. In some cases, we found it necessary to pump water up into the street. Water that is in the street constitutes above ground retention and is not in someone's basement. Meanwhile, the Road Foreman called in four men and instructed them to set up four generators on traffic signals, mostly on Butternut, They next used barricades as instructed by the police to close lanes and roads due to flooding. The foreman surveyed the fallen tree situation and found none that were causing hazards on roads. The Service Department crews then began immediately to assist the Sanitary Systems crews manage sanitary problems. They began by setting up bypass pumps on sanitary sewers and continued by pumping basements until the water in the sewers subsided at about 11:00 pm. By 2:00 am Sunday August 21S`, Dover Lift Station was back to normal with one pump running and by 5:30 am Lebern Lift station was back to normal. On Monday, August 22°a, immediately following the storm, I gathered key people from my administration to evaluate the storm event and the city's reaction to it. The city has put a great deal of effort into getting feedback from property owners affected by sewer back-ups. Using this information, a map has been created which shows areas of storm and separately, sanitary flooding. This map is being evaluated to look for possible problems and remedies for those problems. One thing that is very apparent when looking at the map is that there the problem during this storm affected all parts of the City, and was not isolated to any one or two neighborhoods. The switch that failed to automatically turn on the additional pump at the Dover Lift Station was checked by Riverside Drives. No problem was found, but the switch was replaced as a precaution. It worked properly during the following rain event. The ditch crew checked and cleared debris from all main ditches as usual. A large culvert pipe was found on Sweetbriar that had broken up during the storm. The pipe is open, it was jetted out and a plan is being devised to replace the pipe. The Sanitary Systems crew has checked about 30 test tees and laterals at the request of the owners. In just about all of those cases, the laterals have been found to be clean. The clean 5