Lincoln officials look for solutions to Salt Creek flooding
Posted By: Rachael Miner
rminer@klkntv.com
This is what Salt Creek looks like Monday, but after four days of nonstop rain last week it looked like this.
City officials are beginning to take steps to address flooding of Salt Creek.
The first step to finding a solution, conducting a study.
"Its a concept study will not result in a project that will be ready to be build will take a long time to come to fruition," said City of Lincoln Senior Engineer Ben Higgins.
The bidding process for the study has just begun.
Once a firm has been selected Higgins says the study is expected to span the course of a year and cost anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000, but the consequences of not taking action could be catastrophic.
"If a portion of a levy broke a portion of downtown might be flooded but I don’t think the entire downtown would be flooded. If it over tops and the levy doesn’t break you’ll definitely get some water inside the city," Higgins said.
Salt Creek has flooded several times in recent history.
Most recently, at the beginning of September. Multiple roads in Lancaster County had to be shut down when it overflowed due to heavy rain.
In 2015 people in both the North and South bottom neighborhoods had to evacuate after Salt Creek reached record levels.
Drone video from then shows Haymarket Park’s field submerged and parts of downtown near Memorial Stadium flooded.
Higgins hopes the study can give the city some ideas on how to address flooding concerns, but says any real solution will not come quickly.
"That would be the goal of the study is to reduce the risk and so you can reduce the risk by lowering the flood plane, reducing the flood plane, getting people out of harms way."
Once the study is completed it will likely be years before any work on the creek begins.
The city would need federal grant money, likely close to one-hundred million dollars, but officials say they’re trying to take preventative steps to get ahead of the next big flood.
