Drainage problems plague Iolans
As storm clouds brewed, Jim Heffernon knew he was in for a miserable Wednesday.
Sure enough, the clouds unleashed a torrential rain that dumped nearly 3 inches on Iola, most of it coming in less than an hour.
A pile of sandbags and cement blocks only worked for a short spell, until rainwater surged over the top and into his yard at 21 W. Scott St. The water reached the bottom of his house, quickly filling a crawl space. Small flowers in a side yard garden were swept over by the current.
“I practically burned up my sump pump motor trying to get the water out of the crawl space,” Heffernon said. “It got so hot that had I not been home to turn it off, it probably would have started a fire.”
Two outbuildings — Heffernon’s workshop and a storage shed — had several inches of water inside. As the water receded, about 30 minutes after the rain stopped, a thick layer of silt covered the floors.
“It’s gonna be miserable cleaning those out,” he said.
HEFFERNON concedes that Wednesday’s downpour was rare in its ferocity, and that several Iolans’ yards filled with water. The problem, he said, is that it was the 12th time in the past 18 months that his homestead has flooded.
“We’d never had trouble like this before,” said Martha Heffernon, Jim’s wife.
In fact, while several of the Heffernons’ neighbors lost their homes in the flood of 2007, the water never reached theirs.
“The water got to the edge of our property, but never to the house,” Jim Heffernon said. “The water hasn’t reached that house since 1951.”
He fears that may change.
A grassy area to the north with only a couple small buildings was replaced in the fall of 2008 with a 15,000 square foot auto parts store. Overwhelmed drainage has been a constant headache for the Heffernons since.
It’s gotten so pervasive that the Heffernons keep the sandbags and blocks stacked in front of their house, even in dry weather.
“I know it’s not much to look at,” he said. “But we got tired of having to carry them out every time it rains.”
The couple has declined extended vacations for a fear a downpour will occur while they are gone.
“We need to stay near home so we can be there in case the rains hit,” Martha Heffernon said. “It doesn’t take any kind of rain like Wednesday to flood our yard.”
As evidence, Martha Heffernon keeps on hand a stack of pictures, taken each time stormwater fills their yard. The stack is thick.
THE ISSUE IS disheartening, the Heffernons said, and is made worse by what they contend is an indifferent response by city officials.
“We’ve heard promise after promise,” Jim Heffernon said. “But nothing happens.”
The construction of Iola Auto Parts in 2008 required the building’s owners to get an engineer’s endorsement, assuring the city that construction would not adversely affect drainage in the neighborhood.
Such an endorsement was provided by Schafer, Kline and Warren engineer Ken Shetlar that April.
The Heffernons have a copy of the endorsement: “After study of the site, we have concluded that the addition of the new parts store will not negatively affect storm drainage based on the 100-year storm design. Furthermore, drainage from the site should be taken to State Street on the east or Scott Street on the south,” Shetlar wrote.
“We sat and watched the construction, and one of Martha’s questions to me was, ‘Are we sure that’s not going to affect our drainage?’” Jim Heffernon said. “I couldn’t answer her. But you could just tell with how high they were building that store, the water had to flow somewhere.”
Mother Nature confirmed their fears.
The first rain in 2009 sent water pouring into their yard.
The Heffernons, in response, bought a number of sandbags.
Eight other times last year, water breached their property after seemingly minor rainstorms.
“We raised quite a fuss at the city about it,” Jim Heffernon said. “You could hear it in their tone — we felt like we were being a nuisance.”
The complaints prompted the city to direct the parts store owners to get another engineer’s review of water drainage.
Shetlar, in a second report, noted that the Heffernons’ concerns were valid.
Water from farther north, near Madison Avenue Steaks and Chops, was not carried by the existing storm pipes to the north side of the alley as originally planned. And a crossroad pipe between a pair of inlets on Scott Street did not have the required slope, Shetlar wrote.
He recommended adding new water inlets with larger detention capacity and upgrading a storm pipe along Scott Street with a greater slope.
“They’ve had that report for almost a year,” Heffernon said. “Still nothing has been done.”
“I can see where Mr. Heffernon could interpret it that way,” responded Corey Schinstock, Iola assistant city administrator.
The city is hesitant to order full-scale changes to the stormwater system along Scott Street until a larger engineer’s study is complete, Schinstock said. The city is looking at water drainage there and near Riverside Park.
“I’m sure it’s not proceeding fast enough to his satisfaction, but studies like this take time,” Schinstock said.
For their part, the Heffernons added a pair of drainage pipes of their own in their back yard, to better curb the flow of water to a drainage ditch west of their house.
“But take a look at that drainage ditch today,” Jim Heffernon said. “That’s a whole other issue.”
HEFFERNON, then a police dispatcher with the city, moved into the house in 1974, when to the west stood the old Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad.
Through the years, he’s worked on the house, including a full remodel in 1986, essentially doubling its size.
“People can say they hammered every nail to their home,” he said. “I’m not bragging to say that I’ve nearly done that.”
The rail corridor was abandoned a few years after the Heffernons moved in, and the lot became a veritable dumping ground for surplus construction equipment.
“We usually call the city three or four times a year to complain about weeds,” he said. “And the mosquitoes are horrible. We’ve seen rats, mice, snakes. Stray cats are a huge problem.”
As Heffernon spoke, a white and gray cat jumped from the ditch onto his property.Between the old railway corridor and the Heffernon property is a large drainage ditch. It, too, is filled with debris and tall weeds.
“We keep hearing that the city is going to clean it out,” he said. “They said last month they’d be by next week. Then the next week. They’ve never been here yet.”
The weeds are several feet tall.
“That’s quite a view, isn’t it?” he asked.
HEFFERNON FEARS the waiting game may prove to be too stressful.
“My wife was in tears today,” he said. “It gets tiring. Day after day, putting up with water. Maybe the city is just waiting for me to move.”
But he can’t. Despite the hours of labor to fix up his home, he realizes its market value is next to nothing because of the flood potential.
“I don’t think I could give this place away,” he said. “Would you buy it?”
