By Juan Montoya
Here we go again.
After spending millions of dollars on streets and drainage, what happens after we get a good downpour?
Here we go again.
After spending millions of dollars on streets and drainage, what happens after we get a good downpour?
The city commission has annoucned that it will issue $5.7 million in Certificates of Obligation (COs) to pave some of the city's worst streets...again. Guess what? After a rain like we had today, they will be torn up in no time. Brownsville is just paving challenged for some reason. The streets just don't seem to hold up even when it appears that crews are working on them constantly. 
The usual flooding and washing away of the improvements (and patchwork) performed over the last five or six months and the cycle begins anew.
A former mayor used to say that Boca Chica Blvd. at Four Corners always flooded when a large dog took a pee. Well, looks like Fido had to relieve himself again today.
Retaining ponds and clean ditches and gutters are just stopgaps in a system that really isn’t working. In fact, it has never worked.
Recall that a month prior to the next-to-last city commission election, the then-city commissioners and city manager Charlie Cabler “found” $1 million to patch up potholes in streets and several commissioners then running listed all those “improvements" in their campaign ads?
The usual flooding and washing away of the improvements (and patchwork) performed over the last five or six months and the cycle begins anew.
A former mayor used to say that Boca Chica Blvd. at Four Corners always flooded when a large dog took a pee. Well, looks like Fido had to relieve himself again today.
Retaining ponds and clean ditches and gutters are just stopgaps in a system that really isn’t working. In fact, it has never worked.
Recall that a month prior to the next-to-last city commission election, the then-city commissioners and city manager Charlie Cabler “found” $1 million to patch up potholes in streets and several commissioners then running listed all those “improvements" in their campaign ads?
Guess what happened to those improvements after this week’s downpours? Merely drive down our main strips and see the “patched” blackholes start to suck in our bucks again. Once again we’ll pour a few millions down the drain in patchwork and repairs until the next rains come, then again, the cycle starts anew.
In the meantime, we’ll continue ruining our cars, living in what looks like a shelled-out city and handing over our hard-earned bucks to tire and car repair shops to fix our tires, replace our cracked windshields, and replace our shocks.
Sometime down the road we’re going to realize that unless we undertake a comprehensive system-wide drainage project that covers the entire city – and not just piecemeal strategies – this vicious cycle will continue to be repeated time after time ad infinitum.
Man has altered the natural flow of water in this watershed toward the river with dams upriver and a levee system that effectively prevents the water from following its natural course to the waterway. We need a series of outfalls along the river to divert the water while we gather the necessary political courage to propose the most logical solution to our flooding.
Until then, be prepared to continue pouring money down the drain and suffer the consequences of ignoring the obvious.
In the meantime, we’ll continue ruining our cars, living in what looks like a shelled-out city and handing over our hard-earned bucks to tire and car repair shops to fix our tires, replace our cracked windshields, and replace our shocks.
Sometime down the road we’re going to realize that unless we undertake a comprehensive system-wide drainage project that covers the entire city – and not just piecemeal strategies – this vicious cycle will continue to be repeated time after time ad infinitum.
Man has altered the natural flow of water in this watershed toward the river with dams upriver and a levee system that effectively prevents the water from following its natural course to the waterway. We need a series of outfalls along the river to divert the water while we gather the necessary political courage to propose the most logical solution to our flooding.
Until then, be prepared to continue pouring money down the drain and suffer the consequences of ignoring the obvious.
1 comment:
Y eso que nomas llovio poquito. I thought Ernesto Gamez had cured all the flood problems in Brownsville.
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