Canal Blockage Incident
On 28 Sep 2022, the water levels in Doherty Pond were extraordinarily high, as can be seen in the top part of the photo below, which was taken just as the rain began. The bottom half of the picture is for comparison with normal levels; it was extracted from a Google photo dated Feb 2022. You can see that the 28 Sep 2022 level was extraordinarily high.
As reported in the West Melbourne Friday Memo dated 30 Sep 2022, the reason for the high water level was canal blockage downstream, where the canal goes under Hollywood Blvd. Vegetation at the headwall and inside the pipes of the culvert were blocking the flow of the water. A crew was dispatched and they utilized a backhoe to remove vegetation at the headwall, and also used hand tools to remove vegetation inside the pipes. (See photos below.) Once the pipes were cleared, the stormwater flowed freely, lowering the Doherty Pond, located up stream.
It should be emphasized that this incident occurred just as the rain was beginning. We are shockingly close to a major flooding incident even under normal circumstances.
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This blockage incident illustrates the extreme folly of constructing a new road which can dump massive amounts of stormwater into this canal, with no local detention pond. (See diagram below.) The threat of extreme rainfall events is very real. If this kind of blockage occurs during a major local rainfall event, the results could be disastrous over a wide area, and the city would be liable.
A question that needs to be addressed is: Why was the vegetation near the culvert and inside the pipes allowed to accumulate to the point that it could block the flow of stormwater? Shouldn’t it have been monitored periodically, especially during hurricane season?
Also, we should ask if the culvert under Hollywood Blvd is up to the job. Should it perhaps be a box culvert, rather than a pipe culvert, since blockage of this culvert could have such a devastating impact on wide area?
Finally, one must conclude that the current design of the Doherty/HOB Ext project is absolutely unacceptable because it imposes such a high risk of flooding.