Contractors Working To Repair Drains Near White Plains

Contractors are working to repair a storm drain that caused flooding in the parking lot and street at White Plains Academy after a 36-inch tile collapsed.

Algood City Administrator Keith Morrison said the area began flooding in March after consecutive days of heavy rainfall. The city had to direct traffic in front of the school for several days. Morrison said the city authorized an emergency repair and hired Mack Construction to replace some 250 feet of concrete tile and insert a junction box.

“We tried to get in with a camera,” Morrison said. “Realized that one of the tiles had collapsed. It was an old metal tile and it joined in with concrete tile and it was just banded together. It wasn’t properly fixed and all of the metal tile was completely rusted out in the bottom.”

Morrison said the storm tiles are meant to carry stormwater under roadways and away from areas that will be most negatively affected by flooding. He said work is underway and contractors could finish the project within the week if the weather clears up.

“Our backhoes wouldn’t even reach the bottom,” Morrison said. “So the only way for us to do it is to dig out a huge spot and shelf it down to where we could even get into it, and I just don’t have the equipment or the manpower.”

He said contractors have brought in large excavators and are still having to tier down to get to the area in need of repair. He said the work the city did to mitigate the issue has been temporarily successful.

“Right now, it’s actually opened it up to where the water can get through there where the collapsed tile was,” Morrison said. “We’ve actually pulled that out so the water’s actually able to drain through the rock and get through the tile right now. So it’s actually holding pretty good.”

He said the dirt in the area is so soft that it has been collapsing while work is going on. He said Mack Construction put in trench walls to solve that issue and he hopes to have the project of some $94,500 complete in the coming days.