Floods rattle Riverbend Apartments

Floods rattle Riverbend Apartments

Last flood to impact complex was in 2014

news@theeveningtimes.com

The Riverbend Apartments complained to West Memphis City officials about flooding in the complex.

With some history of flooding in the area company lawyers recently rattled their sabers at city hall.

City Engineer Phillip Sorrell notified the Public Works Committee during the July meeting.

The apartments sit on the south side of Turtle Creek, a drainage ditch that runs north of Auburn Avenue. It is an offshoot from the Ten Mile Bayou. As the ditch crosses Avalon it passes north of the apartment buildings and south of the old hospital, now the home of the Arkansas Community Corrections facility.

The city has pumps on the ditch at Rice Road and more pumps at Ten Mile Bayou.

Major rain events fill the ditch and have caused flooding. Previous owners built a retention wall with the apparent intention to wall the water out. But with just a few portals and pumps to wash standing water out, casual observation reveals the wall dams water inside the complex. A recent trip through the Riverbend parking lot showed pump outlets clogged with debris.

The last flood impacting the apartments was in 2014 according to Sorrell, who wondered why the complaint was being lodged now. The engineer offered the courtesy of notifying the committee of the complaint.

“As a point of notification, the city attorney and I met with the owners of the Riverbend Apartments and their attorney,” said Sorrell. “They requested significant drainage improvements because of flooding problems they’ve had in the apartment complex over the years.”

“No flooding was reported any more recent than 2014,” said Sorrell, “the biggest being back in 2010, 2011 when we had two big damaging floods in the city.”

Councilman James Pulliaum made some observations and asked questions.

“What about the concrete wall they put up that is holding most of that water in?” asked Pulliaum.

“That’s the question I asked them,” replied Sorrell. “The previous owner put the wall up and they bought it with the walls around it and the pumps there. They bought it that way.”

Sorrell said he pointed out remedies to the Riverbend representatives.

“They asked what they could do as owners,” said Sorrell. “I said you can check your pumping inside because right now what that wall is doing is holding water in it is not keeping anything out. I said you have a flaw in your internal mechanism.”

The Riverbend group asserted the city had added to their woes, which the city engineer denied.

“They claimed something has changed that we diverted

water to the property

which has not been the case,” reported Sorrell.

“The property has flooded from the beginning. We do what we can to mitigate flooding around here with (city) pump operations.”

By John Rech