Cincinnati officials say a flood gate on Madison Road in Oakley did not automatically close during a severe rainstorm last Friday because of a mechanical malfunction.
City Manager Sheryl Long announced Thursday an investigation determined that the Duck Creek exceeded the level that should have triggered the gate to close automatically.
“If the floodgate had closed properly, flooding in the immediate vicinity may have been less severe, but the sheer amount of water still would have caused significant issues,” Long said. “The gate is designed to control floodwaters immediately surrounding the Madison Road bridge over the Duck Creek, and does not affect flooding outside of that small footprint.”
Long says about 40 properties are in that footprint, and those property owners have been contacted to evaluate damages and offer support.
The gate still closes properly when the closure is manually initiated. When another rain storm was forecasted on July 21, the city's Stormwater Management Utility manually closed the gate for about six hours "out of an abundance of caution" according to a city statement.
The video below shows the gate closing on July 21:
City officials say manual closure was not possible on July 17 because the water rose too quickly.
"It rose very rapidly," said Greater Cincinnati Water Works Deputy Director Jason Fleming. "Less than, I'd say, 45 minutes [from] the point where it was normal to flooding."
Some information about the gate is available publicly in a report commissioned by the city and completed in late 2020. It was part of a larger analysis that included other flood gates managed by the city's Stormwater Management Utility. You can see a full copy of that 2020 report at the end of this article.
Here's what we know about the gate, why it didn't close, and what happens next.
What is the flood gate?
The gate is on Madison Rd. just west of the bridge that crosses Duck Creek. It's in Oakley, but directly on the border with Madisonville.
The gate was designed by the Army Corps of Engineers and installed in 2008. The city of Cincinnati took over management and maintenance responsibilities for the gate in 2012. Specifically, the city's Stormwater Management Utility is responsible for the Madison Rd. gate; SMU is part of Greater Cincinnati Water Works.
When deployed, the metal gate blocks traffic in both directions on Madison Rd.
There's also a system of traffic control railroad arms to prevent vehicles from entering high water or driving into the gate when closed.
The gate is designed to automatically deploy when water in the Duck Creek below reaches a pre-determined elevation. At a reading of 539.5 feet elevation, the railroad arms drop and an alarm sounds. At a reading of 540, the flood gate should automatically close.
The system is supposed to alert the city when the crossing arms and gate are deployed and send another alert once the creek has receded. Once deployed, the flood gate must be manually re-opened.
The report says in 2018, the city installed a surveillance system that keeps track of water levels; between then and the report's publication, the city recorded a maximum elevation of 532.7.
Why didn't the gate close?
Long says a “mechanical malfunction” means the gate cannot open automatically as designed, based on water level.
The gate still functions if an on-site operator initiates opening.
How often is the gate tested?
Stormwater Management Utility performs annual testing and maintenance on the gate.
“It was last done in October and had a successful test at that time for manual operation,” Fleming said. “The sequencing of automatic operation is not something you can test without the actual situation occurring, which is the Duck Creek being at flood level.”
A city spokesperson said there’s no record of the gate ever deploying automatically, because the water had never reached the level that would trigger the gate — until July 17.
Fleming says this week, the city brought in additional resources to test automatic closure by mimicking a high water level, and the gate failed to open automatically.
“In the past, that’s not been a normal procedure that we do in annual testing,” Fleming said. “That is something we’re going to look for in the future as possibly changing.”
The report's introduction includes this summary: "Since its installation, the City of Cincinnati Stormwater Management Utility (SMU) has experienced problems with the operation of the flood gate and traffic control railroad arms."
Did the city know about problems before the storm?
The city has experienced problems with the traffic arms for several years.
“The arms have a history of improperly lowering, which blocks traffic,” Long said Thursday. “SMU explained to me that they chained the arms in October. The arms being chained was not the cause of the malfunction.”
The 2020 report says this happens due to a failure of a small transformer. When that transformer fails, the arms drop and must be manually raised, and the transformer replaced.
Separately, the report says parts of Madison Road had experienced flooding even though Duck Creek had not reached the elevation threshold that triggers the flood gate.
"The flood flow is getting to this low point by jumping the bank of Duck Creek upstream from Madison Road bridge and upstream of the railroad bridge," the report says.
What solutions did the city consider to fix problems?
To address these problems, the report outlined three possible solutions and recommended that the city replace the Madison Road bridge altogether. That would involve removing the flood gate and crossing arms, "because none of the floods analyzed would overtop the new bridge or other parts of Madison Road."
The report analyzed only 100-year and 500-year flood potentials; the storm on July 17 was likely a 1,000-year flood. It's not clear whether a new bridge as recommended in this report would have prevented flooding in the area.
The cost for design and construction of a new bridge was estimated at between $2.3 million and $2.6 million.
Fleming told reporters Wednesday the city evaluated this recommendation and determined it was not feasible.
“The cost associated was extreme, as well as the impact to property owners in the area, infrastructure in the area, it was massive,” he said. “It would include taking property, roadways, sewers, electrical infrastructure – everything in that area would have had to be completely rearranged and redone.”
In April 2026, the city put out a project for bid to replace the four crossing gates and flashers. The bid did not include changes to the flood gate itself. Responses were originally due June 15, but the Office of Procurement canceled the request, indicating it would be "republished as a new bid with updated specifications in July, after the City's Procurement and Financial system opens for Fiscal Year 2027."
What will happen with the gate now?
The gate still functions as long as an operator is on-site to manually trigger the opening.
Officials say the city is still considering the best long-term plan.
“We're evaluating several different options as far as the protocols to operate that gate until we get it completely repaired and back to the condition that it should be in,” Fleming said.
Long said she could not provide a timeline for completing repairs, either in the short term or long term.
“We're talking about parts, we're talking about things that might be potentially out of the country. These are things that are not immediately in the city of Cincinnati,” Long said. “But this is our focus, and we will work as quickly as we can within the resources we have to move this forward.”
See the full 2020 report
(Note: this document is 174 pages long. The full document may not be visible on mobile)
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