Just as we predicted, unfortunately
Five Points floods again after one year
By John Temple Ligon
Temple @TheColumbiaStar.com

On August 6, 2005, Five Points suffered a flood surprisingly similar to last Sunday night, August 20, 2006. Finally, the city is facing its drainage problems which could cost up to an additional $50 milllion. Photo by Olando Patterson

Last Sunday night, August 20, the rains came at a rate unexpected for another 100 years, according to city officials in August of last year. On August 6, 2005, there was a similar storm and Five Points flooded, floating cars along Saluda Avenue. The official word held that it was a freak, a 100-year storm. The Five Points flood control improvements and beautification budget had just hit $32 million. A year later, now at $36 million, Five Points flooded, some say worse than last year. But this year there was serious discussion in official circles about the choke points along the drainage creek all the way through Olympia, roughly what was first said in The Columbia Star , September 2, 2005, which follows below.

Five Points flooded on the first Saturday afternoon in August in the midst of a $32 million flood drainage improvements and street beautification project. A number of explanations surfaced with city officials and construction chiefs when asked about the storm sewer improvements and the August 6 flood.

Culverts open behind Maxcy Gregg Park

Number one

The status of the afternoon rain: a 100-year storm. Theoretically, this won't happen again until August 6, 2105.

Number two

The most-cited explanation is the Saturday morning yard work and its consequent trash piles on the curb. Under the deluge, the curbside trash flowed into Five Points and into the drainage grates, blocking the flow.

Number three

The temporary system of silt fences set up to prevent silt from collecting in the storm sewers. As the landscapers' ground cover of straw and similar materials floated in the rainstorm and was carried to the storm sewer grates, the silt fences became clogged with straw and dammed the water.

One high-placed city official said the $32 million also pays to double the number of storm sewer drainage grates in Five Points, so the final system will have twice the egress for storm drainage.

Five Points is a drained swamp, the bottom of a natural bowl with only one route for storm runoff. That route is a creek Congaree- bound which goes underground in King Park and continues under Yesterday's and Saluda Avenue. It then goes past Master Cleaners and parallels the railroad, tunneling under the tracks and running along the back edge of Maxcy Gregg Park.

The storm runoff creek flows through a culvert under Pickens Street and another under Wheat Street. From there it meanders to the back of USC's engineering laboratory building on South Main Street.

Here, near the corner of South Main and Whaley, is where the creek floods high and floods often. The engineering professors say they prefer to park their cars during an overcast morning on the high ground, preventing workday dashes to escape the flood.

Residents in Whaley Apartments across the street share similar stories of the same floods. In other words, under the engineering laboratories and under the corner of South Main and Whaley are inadequate culverts, but the worst is farther down stream.

The open creek resumes on the south side of Whaley and flows next to the bermed train tracks. The creek comes out from under the tracks' culvert behind Soaps on Assembly Street and runs underground a few hundred feet to the Capital City Ballpark. Driving around the ballpark, the creek is rediscovered coming through a culvert under Bluff Road in Olympia.

All the culverts since Five Points are multiple- openings jobs, either two or three openings combined in one cut-through culvert. On the north side of Bluff Road is a single-opening culvert, in cross-section area smaller than any total area at any culvert since Five Points. Here, presumably, is the slowest point along the runoff route to the river.

A fourth problem was discovered during a mid-day photography tour of the sole runoff creek from Five Points to Bluff Road in Olympia. The creek's destination is the Congaree River, but its slowest drain occurs at the Bluff Road culvert.

In military night patrol training, the troops are told the single-file patrol is only as fast as its slowest man. A storm runoff creek is only as fast as its most narrow culvert. The Bluff Road constriction backs up the flood waters all the way to Five Points, it appears.

The Five Points drainage improvements project may have to cost a whole lot more than just doubling the drain grates. The city may have to follow the course of the runoff creek and improve each culvert all the way to the Congaree.