Tahitian Village flood projects nearly done

Bastrop County officials spent the past few weeks putting final touches on a couple of drainage projects that they hope could make 20 homes in the Tahitian Village more resistant to flooding.

In Unit 3 of Tahitian Village, which is bounded by Lovers Lane and Waipahoehoe Drive, approximately 30 homes were inundated with water during storms in the 2016 Memorial Day flood. In September 2016, the county ordered an engineering study, hoping that it would outline projects that could keep high waters out of homes.

But that study, released in November 2016 by Befco Engineering, arrived at a bleak conclusion: The county could spend millions of dollars in improvements to the area but would “still have a significant problem on your hands,” said Befco engineer Joseph Willrich.

Precinct 1 Commissioner Mel Hamner said he is making an effort to change that bleak projection. He hopes that this week would see the completion of a bridge that had been severely washed out along Riverside Drive, a road that winds along the northern bank of the Colorado River and becomes swallowed by it during 100-year flood events.

That bridge, in conjunction with a nearby retention pond completed last month, and other culverts still in the works will help drain the water from Unit 3’s bowl-like geography, he said.

“I certainly hope that I’ve lessened the impact on the 20 homes that are immediately there,” Hamner said. “I mean, their cars were underwater.”

Hamner’s projects have been completed under budget. Befco engineers projected costs for bridge replacement at just under $1 million, “with low expectations of solving the problem for more than five of the affected homes because of undersized culverts and slow draining characteristics of the river,” Hamner wrote in a project outline.

But after finding several cost-saving opportunities, even after redesigning the bridge to include two large 10 by 10 culverts, the project came in at $400,000, Hamner said. The bridge is now a 250-year flood event structure.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is expected to reimburse the county $133,000 for the project.

“The Precinct 1 Road and Bridge crew accepted the challenge to take a 10-year flood event bridge that had been washed out four times in less than two years and changed it into a 250year flood event structure with a life expectancy of 100 years,” Hamner said.

The county is also negotiating for a drainage ditch that would be installed behind several Tahitian Village homes that line the Bastrop Business and Industrial Park. That ditch may reduce the flooding impact for other floodprone homes.

“The ultimate goal is to find a way to lessen the (flooding) impact on all 30 homes,” Hamner said.