There was a public hearing at the Sikeston City Council Meeting July 27 over the current stormwater drainage project funded by the Missouri Department of Development — discussing progress, accomplishments, or problems residents have dealt with.
Fronabarger Concreters is the contractor working on new drainage infrastructure and their work is almost complete. That new infrastructure is along Tanner, Lynn, Applegate, and Anderson streets.
Diane Groves says she lives in the Greenbrier subdivision and that one of their drainage ditches is supposed to be maintained by the city. She said the ditch has not been cleaned in a long time. She raised concerns about the continued flooding in the area, saying “we’re not in a flood zone, so if the house floods, insurance is not going to cover it. In the past few years, I bought duck waders. I can go to the middle of our street and the water will be up to my hip. This last rain we had, my nephew was staying at the house — he’s got a huge truck and the water was over his tires. Water drained down within six hours. We couldn’t get out of the house at all with our cars.” Mrs. Groves also had concern about the railroad culvert she lives beside.
City Manager Jon Douglass says they are currently taking contractor bids for the ditch to be cleaned here soon. “We’ve gotten lots of calls. I have also received a letter from the Richland Drainage District threatening to sue us because we’re doing that. So we got challenges there, but we are proceeding forward. We’re going to restore it to its original design, like we’ve always done, and get those trees cleaned out. And yeah, those those culverts do have a problem. They they also tilt the wrong way, so they don’t they don’t start draining until later than they should.”
Annette Akins lives on Moore Street and said she’s frustrated with some of the work happening in the area. She said “if you drive down Hunter or Mueller where they put in new pipes, it’s honestly a mess. There are squares in the road.” This is in reference to work on BMU water lines, but according to Rick Landers with the BMU, the pipe laying process is complete and progress is being made to fill those holes.
GWYNETHICS 