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CINCINNATI (WLWT) — Members of Cincinnati City Council will meet Tuesday morning for the first time since back-to-back rounds of rain caused severe flooding on Cincinnati’s East Side.
Tuesday’s meeting comes as many families and businesses continue to clean up.
This will be a lot more involved than a typical committee meeting: The assistant fire chief and head of the Metropolitan Sewer District are both expected to speak.
It’ll be the first major debrief about last month’s historic rainfall, which impacted homes and businesses in Mt. Lookout, Hyde Park and Oakley.
More than 1,800 damage claims have been filed in the weeks since.
At a community meeting Monday night, one couple shared their financial struggles, after their newly bought home was filled with water.
“It came with so much force that it blew the back door open. So it’s coming up through the sewer, it’s coming through the back door. It’s just terrible. This has been the most overwhelming first house experience I could ever imagine,” the couple said.
MSD says there was little they could do to prepare, calling this a thousand-year flood, with too much rain for even the biggest system to handle.
But, city council is looking at several solutions, including the potential of expanding “green” infrastructure to reduce stormwater runoff, changing flood planning to prioritize watersheds and creating a Flood Resilience Task Force.
“We need to get more creative and think more holistically, not just about what they call ‘gray infrastructure’, the pipes, but how do we convert surface parking to more permeable, how do we capture some of the rain in more upstream maybe in some of the parks before it comes down,” councilmember Mark Jeffreys said.
The Sewer District is also moving forward with several flood mitigation projects. Hamilton County Commissioners are looking at options for federal funding.
At the local level, the city of Cincinnati has opened a hotline for families and businesses affected by flooding.
Tuesday morning’s discussion will begin at 10 a.m.
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