FEMA could draw up a new flood plain map for part of Sharonville. The review comes after a multi-million dollar project that was completed earlier this year.
Safety Service Director Jim Lukas says in 2016, the Ohio Department of Transportation announced plans to replace a culvert under Main Street. “Our mayor had the foresight of saying ‘Hey, we have existing issues with the undersized culvert,' ” Lukas says. “We got a flood study done, and working with ODOT, we learned that just enlarging the culvert would really not do much.”
Instead of simply replacing the culvert, ODOT created a deeper open channel, realigned Main Street, and added some features to an upstream retention dam.
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Public Works Director Stephen Busam says the project should help downtown businesses and neighbors.
“With the improvements at our dam, and the improvements on this channel, the design modeling shows we will remove a majority of our properties from the 100 year flood plain. I believe we got all the structures out.”
The stream in question is a tributary of the Mill Creek.
The project should take downtown Sharonville out of the 100 year flood plain. FEMA is still evaluating.
Lukas says the project cost about $3.7 million. He says FEMA paid most of that, and ODOT and Sharonville covered the rest.
