WEATHERFORD — While much attention has been given to the Briarwood subdivision, located off of Santa Fe Drive in Weatherford, during the last two months storm water drainage issues have occurred in additional subdivisions and concerned homeowners. This has been an ongoing issue for many areas throughout the city.

In July 2007, residents from Timber Creek Estates attended a city council meeting in order to add their neighborhood to a growing list of neighborhoods where residents were tackling flooding issues. The city had announced a Storm Water Action Plan, which was created to deal with drainage problems in the city, the Democrat originally reported. Projects on the plan included those in Woodland Hills, Country Brook Park Estates, Crown Valley Estates, Stetson Drive and Saddle Ridge Trail.

Timber Creek homeowners, however, believed that their neighborhood should also be added to the list of to-do projects because, they told the Democrat, the creek behind their homes significantly overflowed its banks three times in 2007.

Jim York and his wife, Linda, originally told the Democrat their garden had been destroyed and two-thirds of their backyard was no longer usable due to the potential threat of flooding.

Since then, however, York has installed a retaining wall around the backyard.

“It does (help),” he said.

A second Timber Creek resident, Stephen Keene, also said the property he lives on with his parents has suffered from various floods.

“(Flooding) has been going on about a decade,” Keene said. “We’ve slowly watched the flow increase. I have continuously built retaining walls to keep water out of the yard.”

When his family first moved in Keene said a six-inch rain would barely create a flow through the creek channel. Now, however, Keene said a half-inch rain in a 30 minute period can cause water to jump the creek bed.

Similar to homeowners in Briarwood, Keene said he places the cause of the increased water on the additional commercial developments that have been completed both north and south of Interstate 20 – Weatherford Ridge and Weatherford Marketplace.

“They sloped everything to the east,” Keene said. “It all now goes toward the creek.”

A second issue concerning the flooding in Timber Creek Estates was a low water crossing along the entrance on Washington Drive.

“We redid Washington Drive and took the low water crossing and made a bridged crossing there at Timber Creek,” Terry Hughes, director of transportation, said.

And while one problem was solved, homeowners are still concerned about additional flooding.

Keene said he believes the reason that Timber Creek homes were not inundated with water prior to the construction of the shopping centers is because water was naturally absorbed by the land. Now, however, the increased amount of water is simply diverted by the concrete to other areas, Keene said.

“They widened the road, but it’s just more concrete,” Keene said. “When you funnel (water) into concrete, you are increasing the volume of water. All it does is force water into the creek.”

Ultimately, Keene believes the responsibility lies with the city for the increased water.

“They caused the problem but they don’t want to do anything about it,” Keene said. “They are putting a Band-Aid on a puncture wound to the chest.”



Upstream and downstream

After learning about the issues in the Briarwood subdivision, York said he believes the city should fix the issue upstream in Timber Creek Estates first.

“They go down (stream) from us and fix it, but don’t fix the upper problems,” York said. “If they fixed those they wouldn’t have problems at the lower ends – would they?”

Keene admits that at least homeowners in Timber Creek have an advantage over those in Briarwood.

“For us, fortunately, all the top soil is gone, it is only hard-packed sand,” Keene said. “(In Briarwood) each storm takes more and more off the bank.”

York said he and other neighbors have attempted to contact the city, but have not gained any ground.

“We get the same runaround we have for years, so it doesn’t make any difference,” York said.

James Hotopp, director of water/wastewater/engineering utilities, said he personally has not talked to any residents within Timber Creek Estates about flooding issues.

Hughes, however, said that there was a possibility that if the proposed Storm Water Utility passed that additional subdivisions like Timber Creek could have a better chance of receiving additional assistance with flooding issues in the future.

“If we have a storm water utility part of the overall master plan would include all the tributaries of Town Creek and Holland Lake Creek is a tributary of that,” Hughes said.

Hughes, who presented three options to the city council in regards to funding storm water projects on Jan. 24, said obtaining a source of funding, such as the Storm Water Utility, will allow the city to accept more projects than the 20 already listed.

“It would be a methodical way to fund those projects,” Hughes said. “It would allow us to develop a master plan and then go in and actually fund those projects.”

The city council was in favor of moving forward with a Storm Water Utility, which would establish a fee to residential and commercial owners in an effort to create funding dedicated solely to drainage.

The city began to develop a storm water utility in 2007, but due to budget shortfalls it was abandoned in 2008, Hughes said at the Jan. 24 meeting.

Hughes said the discussion of the storm water utility is expected to continue at Tuesday’s city council meeting. The request will include a $50,000 fee, which will pay for a consultant to complete a storm water utility study.

“They will look at impervious areas, what the cost of service would be and what projects are out there,” Hughes said.

If accepted by the council on Tuesday, Hughes expects to have an actionable item to the council by the mid to latter part of the summer, he said.