People who live in flood-prone areas were especially anxious last week, keeping an eye on the storms and torrential rain. That includes in Grasslyn Manor, within Milwaukee’s Sherman Park neighborhood. It’s been hit hard over the years, with some residents losing everything in their basements.
But efforts to make homes more flood-resistant are underway, thanks to partnerships with the city and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, and with the help of longtime resident and organizer Steve O’Connell. He’s been pushing for solutions for years, and he’s recruited fellow neighbors along the way, including LaMarc Houston.
When Houston moved into his home three years ago, he had no idea Grasslyn had endured so much flooding. “I was scared. Oh my god, what did I get myself into? That’s all I was thinking, like bro, they didn’t tell me or nothing,” Houston says.
Last August, the flooding hit Houston hard. "Oh my god it was horrible, horrible. Even before August it had rained not even that bad and the water from the rain came up and flooded my basement way before the big storm that happened in August,” he says.
Houston got involved in the neighborhood effort to come up with solutions. That’s when he met neighborhood organizer Steve O’Connell. "You were the first person I talked to about this when I first moved here," Houston told O'Connell.
Thanks to a partnership with the City of Milwaukee and the MMSD, Houston will get a new sump pump and sanitary sewer lateral, "and that’s great because I definitely can’t afford to have that work done,” he says.
Starting next summer, crews will work on the homes that are most susceptible to flooding. O’Connell says they're situated in areas that are more likely to get wet than many parts of the city. “The thing over here is the springs. We have three major springs, and then people have smaller springs in their backyards and this water just adds to that water table," O'Connell says.
O'Connell says as they looked for solutions, neighbors took initial steps, starting with obtaining rain barrels. “The first time we did it (we got) 62 rain barrels, it built serious community. Everybody was visiting and they were all pitching in and helping out and it was just a huge community builder. The next year I think we got 15 more,” O’Connell says.
Neighbors also signed on to keep storm drains free of debris so water could flow off the street during heavy rains. "Two years ago now we worked with Sweetwater and that’s a program where they come and help neighborhoods manage the water. The first thing is to basically get those drains clean, those storm drains. And I have four drains right on the corner here that I keep clean all the time,” O’Connell says.
O’Connell says neighbors began to worry as storms hit the area last week. He says “everybody I’ve spoken with so far, they’ve gotten very little water and a lot it is just seepage. Just seeps in because the backyard is full of water."
Still, O’Connell feels certain the upcoming infrastructure projects will make his neighborhood more resilient, "both resistant and resilient because the system is all together. It’s one system and I never realized that,” O’Connell says.
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