CINCINNATI — During a Climate, City Services & Infrastructure committee meeting on Tuesday, Cincinnati officials faced criticism from residents affected by last month's flash flooding, as council members moved forward with a flood mitigation measure.
Before the committee meeting to review the July storm response even started, nearly a dozen residents lined up for public comment to voice their frustrations.
In the roughly seven weeks since Jacob Bailey moved to Hyde Park with his family, he said their garage has flooded three times.
"Two weeks after we moved in, we had over a foot of water in our detached garage. Lost a car. Lost several thousand dollars worth of stuff," Bailey said. "I'm here not just because of the effect that it's had on us, but our entire community."
WATCH: Residents push city officials to come up with long-term solutions following historic flash flooding in July
Bailey said some of his neighbors in Hyde Park have experienced partially or fully flooded basements, lost multiple cars and seen damage to the bottom floors of their homes.
"It's very easy when people see on the news that 'Oh this area flooded,' and you see some cars underwater, it's really easy to miss the ongoing human toll of that, and it's something that we're all still suffering," Bailey said.
Cincinnati Fire, Metropolitan Sewer District and Greater Cincinnati Water Works officials joined council Tuesday to answer questions and discuss ways to mitigate flooding impacts in the future.
Cincinnati Fire Department Assistant Chief Matt Flagler said 40 total properties were affected by the Duck Creek flood gate's failure on July 17.
"We know floodgate evaluation and modernization across our entire flood control system is something that needs to be modernized," Flagler said.
Flagler mentioned other longer-term solutions, including using new technology to improve flood management and expanding public alert systems.
Council member Meeka Owens said there are no quick fixes to the underlying infrastructure problems.
"We can't build a bioswale (drain) overnight. But what we can do is make sure residents know where to go, what to do and be able to access the resources that are available," she said.
Owens said short-term solutions should focus on improving how the city responds and communicates during flooding events, including better coordination with the Red Cross and increased funding for MSD's sewer backup program.
Last week, we reported that MSD received more than 1,800 reports since the storms and more than 900 of them have met eligibility requirements for cleaning services through the program.
Bailey commended the city's response in the immediate aftermath of the flooding but said the meeting fell short of delivering the concrete answers residents need.
"I think it's a little bit specious to make this the brunt of the presentation when this is not a one-time event. This is an ongoing problem," Bailey said. "If we treat this like a one-off, it's going to keep happening, and our communities are going to keep suffering because of it."
Bailey said that focusing on "band-aid solutions" to the flooding could have a broader negative impact on affected neighborhoods.
"I think this could be the beginning of a death spiral for these communities because people will get tired of it, they will leave, and then these vibrant communities have been a key part of the city's personality and history, they're going to wither," he said. "I think the city will have lost something really important if we let that happen."
During the first meeting back from summer recess on Wednesday, council is expected to vote on more flooding relief assistance.
During Tuesday's meeting, council members referred a motion to the full council for a vote. The motion asks the city administration to work with MSD to implement green infrastructure solutions to reduce stormwater runoff and create a task force to identify flooding risks and solutions.
"A part of that is certainly looking at how we leverage since the on-track dollars," Owens said. "Myself and my colleagues are committed to moving forward from this event on. We will not back down. We will be relentless because we can't just think that this is a one-off."
She said her office has already sent questions to the community to gather input for future administration briefings, and she plans to include flooding updates as a standing agenda item in her committee.
Bailey said he is skeptical the task force will produce results.
"Those sorts of task forces and analyses have been happening for decades, and we always wind up in a place of well, it's too expensive to fix," Bailey said. "The longer we wait to fix it, it's only going to get more expensive, and the problem's only going to get bigger."
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