CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Clarksville city leaders have started preparing for heavy predicted rainfall in the area.
Clarksville Street Department Director David Smith told News 2 that his team of roughly 100 employees have been all hands on deck. About half of them will be on standby around the clock, starting Wednesday, ready to respond to possible flooding.
"We have seen three what we call hundred-year events — what FEMA calls hundred-year events — in the last 11 or 12 months, which is a little staggering, especially for our community, to see this amount of water,” Smith said. “It's definitely a challenge. Just to illustrate what that hundred-year event means, it means there's a one percent chance in the calendar year we'd see an event like that, so there's a 99% chance we won't see that. That's a tough thing to sell right now when we've had it three times within a year, but it explains why we don't design to that one percentile.”
Rain, expected to move in on Wednesday, is expected to continue into Sunday.
Clarksville Street Department employees have started filling sandbags, readying street signs and clearing debris from drains and other areas. Smith urged residents to prepare by clearing any debris fom drains on their property and especially around cone grates.
“Once the rainwater comes in, especially at this volume, it picks that debris up and it moves it down to these what we'll call choke points, whether it's a basin [or] whether it's an injection well,” Smith said. “It accumulates and it can create damming effects and and impede what would otherwise be a naturally-functioning piece of our infrastructure.”
Although as of publication it's not clear exactly where flooding will occur, Smith predicted the north and northwestern sides of town were most at-risk. The Street Department has prepared to shut down roads if needed.
Any residents who would like to request sandbags for their property can call the Clarksville Street Department directly at 931-645-7464.
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