Persistent rainfall this month has caused flooding in some of Columbia’s parks, trails and roads. Officials with the Parks and Recreation and Utilities departments say the floods were unexpected and that many of the factors that cause flooding in the city are beyond their control.
David Dittmer is a natural resources supervisor at the Columbia Parks Department. He says it’s been years since the city has seen severe flooding.
“A lot of parts of the MKT trail went completely underwater. A lot of the Forum Nature Area was completely underwater,” he said. “Generally, with a typical rain, a lot of our tunnels and bridges will have water on top of them. But this last one resulted in a lot more major flooding than we're used to seeing.”
Dittmer says the rain overwhelmed the city’s creeks, which weren’t able to flow into the Missouri River.
“Right now, the Missouri River is at an incredible flood stage,” Dittmer said Tuesday. “So, when we get rains in town, our urban streams essentially can't drain because they normally would just flow out into the Missouri. But when the Missouri is backed up and super high, that water has nowhere to go, so even small rain events in town can cause a lot more dramatic flooding than it normally would.”
The Forum Nature Area is located near Hinkson Creek, which flows into Perche Creek which, normally, flows into the Missouri.
The rain also flooded roads and highways around Columbia. But Utilities Department spokesperson Matt Nestor says it’s too soon to conclude which areas of the city’s infrastructure need attention.
“Once we get through all this and look at all the data that we're collecting, and seeing the areas that are impacted, then we know there are some areas that need attention sooner,” Nestor said.
For the last few months, the city has been surveying residents about its Integrated Management Plan, a 20-year plan detailing Columbia’s wastewater and stormwater infrastructure priorities. Residents can fill out the survey online or attend an in-person public input meeting on Aug. 21, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Activities and Recreation Center, located at 1701 W. Ash St.
“We're looking at making sure our priorities are still in the same order as what they were when we started in 2018.” Nestor said.
Dittmer says one way to help prevent floods is to slow runoff into Columbia’s creeks by upgrading urban water retention features.
“A lot of our downtown area — which is a lot of rooftops, a lot of concrete and asphalt — was developed before the city had any type of stormwater regulations,” Dittmer said. “With newer construction, people are required to put in stormwater retention cells and detention cells and that helps a lot. But we still have a lot of parts of town, which were never required to have those things installed when they were built.”
For now, city departments are mostly limited to dealing with floods after they arrive.
“As a stormwater utility, we can't really control where water goes,” Nestor said. “But we can do our best to manage where the water goes.”
