This was sent in after Friday night’s rain:
Historically, this alley has periodically flooded during very heavy rain storms. Chimborazo playground, the entire playground, drains to this drain. It’s a bad city design, now made worse because of the new plaza/patanque courts. They seem to have eliminated the drain that used to run around the park house.
In addition, the city has blocked off the drain in the alley. They used a metal plate and cement to block the drain, apparently to prevent the debris from the construction of the patanque courts from getting into the storm drain system.
Attached are two images, one from midnight, and one from 8 a.m. this morning. The water is receding, but very slowly.[…] Obviously they knew better than to park there last night, but basements and cars have been flooded in the past.
16 comments
By Sunday, 3 days later, there was still a lake. The mosquitoes in the alley are outrageous.
this just confirms that pentanque is the root of all evil
Has anyone sent this in to DPU? Standing water and mosquitoes are most definitely a bad combo!
What’s the latest on the pentanque courts? Has an approximate date of completion been set?
One of the courts was completely under water when I passed through the park a few nights ago…
There are four or five pentanque players and they have taken most of the blacktop area of the playground for their courts – which could have easily been placed near the tennis courts instead. They have taken the center spot of the kid’s playground and left the skaters and basketball players fighting over the little space that’s available. Sure, they said they might build a skate park, but only after a meeting to determine neighborhood approval. Why didn’t we have a neighborhood approval meeting for the dang petanque courts?
Really, it’s a lot like taking candy from a baby.
I’m still bitter about what happened at Chimbo. Four permanent courts are unnecessary…talk about a waste of money, space, etc.
What is Pentaque? I always thought it was called petanque. It looks like a sort of cool game to me. I’m guessing this is the city’s responsibility with the drainage issue rather than being the players at fault,possibly?
That alley has always been bad but it sounds like it is now much worse thanks to the petanque players and their court. #1 Syd I hope your sisters truck was not flooded out this time, but the city REALLY needs to do something about this.
Anyone tried entering this in the city database of potholes and such that need fixing? I’m still trying to get the drain thing at 25th and Main fixed. I wonder if a combined approach would work. Syd please let me know if you have done so (yet again) and maybe we can coordinate a combined approach with the other residents. You have a new neighbor on the south side of the street.
P.S. Thank you John Murden, I notice that now before I hit submit with my post, it is underlining things that might be misspelled, the way Microsoft Word would do.
Because the former chair of the Church Hill Association is one of the Pentanque players. That is why they screwed the kids and built 23 pentanque courts, including the indoor all weather air conditioned one they just broke ground on
AIR-CONDITIONED? Are you kidding?
gross. that’s a pretty bad situation.
(and yes, it’s *petanque*, not *pentanque*–a very fun game, although I have never used the courts there:)
I emailed the citys complaint service on their website, then the parks department, and called 311 a few times (along with some other concerned folks). Yesterday, I got an email from someone in the city who was very concerned that the basements on the alley would flood, and asked that I send him these photos of the flooding. He went to look in the alley and didn’t seem to want to play the blame game- who covered it, why, etc. He listed the replacement of the metal plate with a grate as his priority. I’m quite impressed. It seems to me, crd, that you should use this citizen’s complaint thing on their website. It seems to go directly to the department that needs to hear about it. Calling 311 got my sister and I no where (my sister lives on that alley).
Obviously, we’ll see how much ‘priority status’ means that it gets fixed quickly, but I’m hopeful.
Sorry that I misspelled petanque. I don’t blame flooding of the alley on the improvements (i.e. petanque courts) in the park. I still don’t agree that all of those courts are what this neighborhood needs. I am excited that we’re supposed to get some additional trees out of the deal, though. Time will tell whether this was a good move or a bad one. There were neighborhood meetings about the courts, a few years back.
Syd, I have used the website to report the grate at the corner of 25th and Main Streets which gets stopped up whenever we have a heavy rain. I’ve reported it three or four times, with pictures, but nothing ever comes of it. Someone else has posted on this blog that he’s used the city website for the same drainage problem, also to no avail. They DID however finally fill in the potholes I’d complained about!
I’m real glad you finally got a response about the alley, sounds promising so far!
Maybe in the next couple of years after it sits around unused they can “renovate” it to be used as a community center for kids? Maybe the former chair of the CHA can help with that as well???
Perhaps it’s because I also emailed the Parks Department directly. I submitted 2 reports to the general complaint thing, but their scroll-down menu didn’t have an option for ‘oddly sealed shut storm drain’ so I decided to keep poking around the website. The parks department had an email listed for complaints.
This is the way to contact the storm water utility: http://eservices.ci.richmond.va.us/applications/RichmondGovContactUs/ContactUs.aspx?ID=178
Good luck!
Thank you Syd!