The Central Valley experienced some pretty heavy-duty rain throughout the past month, but none of it was like the storm that passed through last week.
Madera recorded 1.42 inches of rain on April 21, setting a record by more than an inch (0.40 was the previous record), including hail that fell throughout the County.
The rain came quick and fast, and some motorists were stranded at the intersection of Howard Avenue and Pine Street.
However, within a short time after the rain stopped, the flooding subsided and residents went on their way.
City Manager Arnoldo Rodriguez and his staff anticipated the storms to help alleviate the flooding.
“We set up our storm pumps,” he said. “The City has 22 permanent storm pump stations. We have an additional four storm pumps, and we ordered another one. Those are on a trailer. We set those up in locations that have experienced localized flooding. The most common flooding areas are Howard and Pine and in front of City Hall. We also have them on stand-by for areas that are backing up.”
However, Madera’s storm drain system couldn’t anticipate what fell last week.
“What we experienced Tuesday was a storm that was really intense for a brief period,” Rodriguez said. “During that time, it overwhelmed the system. What we saw is that nothing technically failed. The intensity overwhelmed a system that wasn’t designed to take on that much rain in a brief period. It was a significant amount of rain and a lot of it fell in a half hour.”
There were more than a few flooding areas, including the usual suspect at Howard and Pine and in front of City Hall.
“The water went up to the steps of City Hall and the parking lot on Fourth Street was pretty flooded,” Rodriguez said. “The intersection by St. Joachim was flooded. “There was also Westberry at Cleveland and Westberry around Riverview and around Wolftrap Court. There was also flooding around West Park Drive near Schnoor Avenue. Mainberry just south of Sunset had a lot of water.”
Despite the localized flooding, Rodriguez insists that the system still worked.
“The system was just overwhelmed,” he said. “Once it stopped raining, the water flowed into the storm drain system, and was carried to basins or Madera Irrigation District facilities. We try to capture as much water as we can to put into our basins. We anticipated the storm. We were cleaning and cleared inlets. We had 10 City staffers stay overtime to make sure the pumps were working and reacted to problem areas. We didn’t get any reports of flooding going into resident homes or businesses.
“The system is not built for that amount of water in that short of time.”
There were reports of limbs falling, but Rodriguez and his team did not get any reports of trees falling. There were also power outages in the City limits that lasted more than 24 hours, most likely the result of falling limbs or poles.
Rodriguez also said that the sewer system received a lot of water during the storm. However, he understands that some rainwater hits the sewer system. He has his thoughts on why there was more than double the amount from the storm.
“We had 13 million gallons of water flowing into the system,” he said. “We usually average five million gallons. We experienced more than double the flow into the system. Any time it rains, there’s seepage that goes through the manhole covers, so that may account for some of it.”