OMAHA – Some nearby business owners are frustrated because their area of the city is frequently hit by flash floods.
“We see cars floating by because people think they can get into that water,” said Phil Rhodes, owner of Futuramics Clean Water Center.
On Thursday, the water knocked on his business’s door again.
“It appeared on our sidewalk over here about halfway. Maybe within 4-6 inches of entering the office, but it didn’t,” Rhodes explained. “There is mud, there is a lot of cleanup, we could lose inventory.”
Residents and business owners First Alert 6 spoke with describe it as an unsettling aspect of life.
“It goes up and down extremely quickly. You do not have much, and you do not get much notice,” Rhodes explained. “It is a raging river, then it calms down, and then it is gone. It is a real pain, but we have gotten used to it, and we get nervous whenever we get one of those big storms.”
According to Jim Theiler of Omaha Public Works, the road is basically a funnel.
“Saddle Creek just happens to be a road at the bottom of a hill where that is where all the water flows,” Theiler told me.
And with a downpour like we had Thursday…
“The city can not really do anything about flooding in Saddle Creek and other areas that are prone to flooding when that much rain comes down in a short period of time,” Theiler told the media.
Last year, city councilmember Danny Begley told First Alert 6 that he believes it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to resolve the issues.
Theiler says the city may consider adding more signs warning people not to drive when it is raining and encourages them to listen to their local meteorologists.
“We have to continue and educate and use media sources like yours to educate people to, you know, just stay out of harm’s way, you know, when it is raining that hard,” Theiler told reporters.