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NEWSROOM * CIRCULATION * ADVERTISING
Friday
September 2010
10
Community Blogs
Slimed Again
It rained last night. A lot.
The water rose and sewage backed up. Into the basements of people's homes. A lot of them. I don't know where else that happened in South Milwaukee, but I do know it did on my street and on the one around the corner. Again.
This has happened before. Most recently a little over two years ago. And it caused a huge stink -- literally and euphamistically.
A big enough stink that the city -- or someone -- decided to do something about it.
That 'something' was a project that involved ripping up a neighbor's yard and an area that went back toward the park and replacing the culverts with much larger ones. It also involved tearing up several blocks of the street and leveling the rather high crown in the middle so that water from a heavy rain would flow down the entire width of the street surface, rather than wash from the middle toward the curb then sluice along the sides and overwhelm the street drains.
So what happened? Why, in the next big rainstorm, did water and sewage back up as if the mitigation project had never been done?
That 's what I asked my alterman, Erik Brooks. That, plus, how much had the mitigation project cost?
Alderman Brooks, who was elected to the Common Council in November of 2008 so understandably isn't necessarily all that familiar with the flooding/mitigation-project history, said he would like answers to those questions, too, and would start looking into it on Monday.
He did know that it was a heavy rainfall, "the second-worst one-day rain event in Milwaukee history," he said, and he isn't sure if it'll ever be possible to commpletely solve the problem, but he is hopeful the situation can be improved.
A promise he did make is to keep South Milwaukeeans posted via his blog -- http://4thdistrictblog.com -- and by other means.
I'll post what I learn, too.
Meantime, I am just sick for the neighbors who have had to deal with this dreadful situation. And I pray n one gets sick from exposure to the unwelcome effluence in their homes.
- Garlic Mustard Pickers Play LaFollette
- Could flooding answers lie in elementary physics? (1)
- The ball's rolling -- vote or not
- Missing the mark -- and the vote
- It's a start
- Take Shelter (1)
- Home, Sweet 'Deep Tunnel' Sewerage System
- Slimed Again
- Freedom Isn't Free (1)
- South Milwaukee Street Department…I Think it’s L-O-V-E (1)
- More New Kid's View posts
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