This December, Huntington's floodwall will be 65 years old. It has served the city well, but parts are showing signs of age.
With events of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans three years ago and in the Midwest this summer, the condition of the floodwall is a legitimate topic of public concern. People who know the floodwall best have differing opinions.
Steve Riggs, the city floodwall superintendent, said he is concerned about the floodwall pumps and the gate openings. The pumps have been in service since the floodwall went into operation. The pumps are outdated and suffer from a lack of preventive maintenance, he says. His concerns with the gate openings come from the fact that federal regulations require periodic drills to ensure that city workers can close all gates before water gets into the city. The federal government does not punish cities for not conducting drills.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which built the floodwall and inspects it, says the seven miles of concrete wall and 4.5 miles of levee are in good shape.
"There was no condition that I observed that could be reasonably expected to preclude the project from functioning during the next flood event," Corps program manager Dave Humphreys told The Herald-Dispatch reporter Bryan Chambers last week regarding his most recent inspection of the floodwall in August 2007.
Jim Ashworth, a retired civil engineer who worked in the Corps' Huntington District office for 30 years, offered several suggestions for ensuring the safety and stability of the city's flood protection system. First, there should be a detailed analysis of the floodwall and its pump stations to reveal deficiencies and costs associated with fixing them, he said.
Second, more money needs to be earmarked for the floodwall division's budget, he said.
Ah, there's the problem. The city once charged property owners a fee for maintaining the floodwall, but it was wrapped into the all-purpose municipal fee and placed in the city's general fund, where it disappears into a variety of programs. There is no money specifically set aside for floodwall maintenance as there once was.
The floodwall is an important part of Huntington's public infrastructure. It has saved low-lying areas of the city from flooding many times in the past 60 years. But as with the rest of Huntington's infrastructure, it is in constant need of repair and updating.
But as with the city's other infrastructure needs, there is no way of doing the necessary work given the existing revenues. The city doesn't have the money to repair its streets or bring its police force back to former levels of staff and equipment. If it cannot find money for those highly visible needs, money for less-obvious needs such as floodwall pumps and storm sewers won't be available, either.
Luckily for Huntington, the problems appear to be more mechanical than structural. It should be easier to replace pumps than to repair large sections of a weakened floodwall or levee. But the problem is still there.
Perhaps federal money can be made available. It would be less expensive for the government to replace pumps than to clean up the mess from a flooded city.
The floodwall is another indication of how Huntington's seemingly small problems are aggregating into a large one. The city's infrastructure needs have to be addressed someday. Residents and property owners are waiting for the person with a workable plan to step forward.
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