BRIDGE FIX BIG BILL FOR BELLBROOK
Heavy rain causes culvert washout, road collapse Friday.
— Bellbrook City Manager Melissa Dodd estimated it could take three months and $500,000 to replace a culvert bridge and neighborhood road washed out Friday in flooding.
The Bellbrook City Council is expected to meet Monday to expedite design and replacement of the culvert and section of North Belleview Drive lost in flooding fed by close to four inches of rain.
“Nobody is landlocked thankfully,” Dodd said. “A lot of water came down real quick today.”
City officials met Friday at the site of the culvert washout and road collapse with engineers from PreTek Group to survey the damage.
The section of road, north of Ohio 725, collapsed about 6:30 a.m. Friday after the stormwater pushed the pipes out from underneath, Dodd said.
“It was totally unexpected,”
Dodd said, indicating the culvert, two corrugated metal pipes side by side, was last replaced in the late 1980s.
Dodd attributed the damage to the heavy rains combined with changes to stormwater management resulting from the Cornerstone development along Wilmington Pike.
When Clyo Road was extended, a large culvert was installed “a halfmile directly upstream” to handle stormwater flow, Dodd said.
“That flow came down and hit our culvert,” Dodd said. “We did have almost four inches of rain.
It was kind of a perfect storm.”
Other flooding was reported in Greene County and in Montgomery, Clark and Preble counties.
On Monday, the Bellbrook City Council will be asked to set aside competitive bidding so that the city can move ahead quickly with the emergency repair, according to the city manager.
Dodd said PreTek estimated the design and construction would cost $400,000 to $500,000.
“It’ll be a couple months before it’s back up,” she said, adding the goal was to be finished in three months.