GRANDVIEW, Mo. — A handful of Grandview, Missouri, departments team up when heavy rain and thunderstorms are in the forecast.
This week the public works, fire and police departments have been monitoring flood-prone areas across the city.
One of the areas they’ve been monitoring is the Little Blue River by the Merrywood Bridge.
“Our assistant fire chief drove around and kept an eye on our bridges and streams that we know we have issues at, and then we have public works staff on call and they were ready in case roads had to be closed,” Jackie White, with public works, said. “If water rises over the roads, then we close the roads, so that's some of the things we do when it comes to this type of weather.”
The city is still dealing with damages from 2017 flooding, after storms caused roughly $4 million in infrastructure damage. Some of that damage included the Raytown Road culvert, which had issues even before the 2017 flooding.
“We had a contractor stabilize it January 2018 with a polymer injection material which seems to have stabilized it for the time being. We have determined that the best means to replace the structure is with two single-span bridges,” White said. “A consultant has prepared preliminary plans. We do not have funding identified for the removal of the culvert and construction of the bridges.”
White said one of the big ways residents can help keep the water flowing where it needs to go is keeping the inlets free from leaves and debris.
“We'll see people blowing their leaves into the street and yes, we do have street sweepers and they do sweep up leaves, but there's only a certain capacity,” White said. “The more you blow into the street, the more that the street sweeper gets full and they have to go back and emptying it, and it's just really hard to keep up with. So if residents can keep the gutters in front of their properties and in front of their yards, that's such a huge help for every public agency.”
The city said there haven’t been any major issues due to the recent rain, but it will continue to monitor water levels.
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