By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
Before the Glasgow Common Council got down to its other business at its regular meeting Monday, the group heard about part of the local impact of recent rains and flooding from the superintendent of the city Department of Public Works.
Jim McGowan, who is also the city engineer, said he’d been doing some research in the past few days regarding water levels.
“One of the things I’m going to start with tonight is … where all this water goes to; it’s Barren River Lake,” he said.
McGowan said that on April 2, the lake was already about 14.5 feet above normal summer pool, which is a mean elevation of 552 feet above sea level, so it was already considered to be in a flood stage. The next day, 3.59 inches of rain fell, followed by 2.99 inches the day after that and 2.57 inches the third day afterward, for a total of 9.15 inches of precipitation over a 72-hour period.
The all-time record was 580 feet above sea level, and that was surpassed by roughly 6 feet.
McGowan said that crews would get calls about places in the city that were flooding, then the water would begin to recede, but then more rain would bring the levels back up again, and this cycle repeated many times over those days, though in some places it didn’t recede quickly enough so the water just kept accumulating on the surface.
He said DPW personnel cleared out what stormwater drains in advance of the forecast rain, but the next deluge carried trash and other debris right back to many of them, causing them to get clogged again.
“Basically, the runoff exceeded the capacity,” McGowan said.
As they worked to clear the drainage structures of blockages, he said, they couldn’t access some areas because the water was too high.
He said that although they are aware of where some of the consistent trouble spots are, they rely on feedback from community members to learn where issues have developed where they may not normally.
Councilman Terry Bunnell asked whether there were any locations that were more of a surprise with problems that occurred and where the city may need to spend some money for further mitigation, and McGowan mentioned the Highlander Estates subdivision off Columbia Avenue.
He said there’s a central retention basin along McTavish Lane that catches a lot of runoff, but some repairs need to be made to the emergency spillway to improve the way it functions.
McGowan added later that there were definitely places that flooded that didn’t have a history of doing that regularly.
Turning to action items after further general discussion of the recent flooding, the council unanimously approved a resolution authorizing a $97,532 grant application by the city that would be used to create a wall extension for the compost pad as well as second readings for the following three rezoning ordinances:
– approximately 0.29 acre at 603 W. Main St. from Light Industrial (I-1) to General Business (B-2), as requested by 6B Holdings;
– approximately 160 acres at 1573 Cleveland Ave., formerly referred to as the Johnson property, from Light Industrial (I-1) to Planned Unit Development (PUD), as requested by the City of Glasgow for future development with residential, retail and recreational components; and
– approximately 12.8 acres roughly 635 feet north of the North Jackson Highway (U.S. 31-E) intersection with Hutcherson Road from Low Density Residential (R-1) and General Business (B-2) districts to Agricultural (AG), which requires a minimum lot size of five acres, as requested by Sam Day Dickinson.
Mayor Henry Royse had told Glasgow News 1 that the next main steps for the former Johnson property, for which conceptual-plan options have been developed and presented to the public, are to create a set of rules and restrictions that would have to be followed by developers who want to build there – to help ensure quality, attractive homes and businesses – and to attract developers to participate in residential and retail construction, in particular.
“We can’t open the gate up and then change the rules after we start,” he said, so they need to make sure everyone’s on the same page from the beginning.
Those restrictions were being developed by Qk4, the engineering firm that was contracted by the city to develop the conceptual plans, and Royse said he expected that final drafts would be under review by now.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To learn more about a planned unit development, a zoning option that has been on the books for several years but not sought for any properties until now, check Glasgow’s zoning ordinance on the website of the Joint City-County Planning Commission of Barren County.
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