TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN — Midtown Tucson has some extra challenges when it comes to monsoon flooding. A lot of the area was built without any sort of storm sewer so Pima County Flood Control and the City of Tucson are cooperating on small locations like small parks, where the contours of the land carry the water down and hold it in a containment pond to keep it safely out of streets and homes.
In Midtown, when the rain comes down, the streets fill up. In Ann Moynihan’s neighborhood the streets were actually designed to fill with water and carry it to a wash.
“The water comes down this way and joins together and then we have a pretty big flow in this wash; it can be filled up to not quite the top of those banks. I haven't seen it but the entire wash can be filled with water at that time.”
Ann understands flood patterns better than most. She spent a lot of years working for Pima County Flood Control. Now she’s following County and City efforts to pump up protection for midtown.
Near Kino Parkway, Cherry Field is ready for baseball now, but its deep bowl structure is meant to catch and hold high flows of stormwater. But midtown is so built up now it’s hard for the County and City to get enough land for big, new flood control sites.
Pima Flood Control director Eric Shepp says, “So we've moved from trying to hit the homerun on the 100 year flood and do a whole bunch of smaller basins that happen to have a whole bunch of other side benefits there. They become parks, they're community gathering spaces, they grow more trees, they have water quality benefits.”
Modern measurements help Pima Flood Control find the best locations for the neighborhood flood water basins. Tucson’s Parks Department takes care of them so they’re ready when the next monsoon fills them up.
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Craig Smith is a reporter for KGUN 9. With more than 40 years of reporting in cities like Tampa, Houston and Austin, Craig has covered more than 40 Space Shuttle launches and covered historic hurricanes like Katrina, Ivan, Andrew and Hugo. Share your story ideas and important issues with Craig by emailing craig.smith@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.
