Questions arise over sewer security

Woman wandered drain tunnels; what about terrorists?

DELRAY BEACH — A woman who says she spent three weeks wandering through storm drain tunnels under Delray Beach might have exposed a terrorism risk.

After 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security urged communities across the U.S. to minimize the risk of such threats by securing any large drainage openings with welded bar grilles.

The 43-year-old woman claimed she entered the tunnels through an opening while swimming in a canal and then became lost. She was rescued Tuesday, three weeks, later, after people on Atlantic Avenue heard her calls for help.

Local officials say that welded grilles on storm tunnels could be a disaster of its own in South Florida and lead to an even bigger flooding problem.

Miami Dade and Broward counties do have bars on some of the larger pipes to keep manatees from slipping through. That's not the case in at least half of Palm Beach County because officials say they have not had a problem with manatees and, until this week, never had an issue with any person wading into the system.

The city of Delray Beach still hasn't figured out how

the woman intruded into the system, but officials plan to find out, said Mayor Shelly Petroila.

The woman is a drug addict with some mental health issues, police said in report. The South Florida Sun Sentinel is not identifying her because of her mental health issues.

If the woman's story is true, it's likely she entered from a canal managed by the Lake Worth Drainage District. A drain pipe there is 66 inches in diameter. The further one goes inside, the narrower the pipes get. The system was designed by the Florida Department of Transportation, which has refused to comment for days.

The drainage district has over 500 miles of canals and spans from South Boulevard in West Palm Beach south to the Broward County line. Each development and neighborhood is connected in some way to underground storm drains.

Tommy Strowd, a civil engineer and executive director of the drainage district, said he has been in South Florida doing this line of work since 1976 and has never heard of a person wandering around in the drainage system.

The system is not one that even inspectors want to wade into with gusto, and if possible they use cameras instead.

He said that if the woman was in fact meandering through the tunnels, she would have been in waist- possibly chest-high water and in complete darkness among alligators, snakes, turtles and debris.

Strowd said that when a robotic camera won't cut it and inspectors have to go in in person, they do so with someone armed with a handgun to fend off alligators and such.

"I'm surprised that woman would be compelled to go in there and not immediately turn around and get out," Strowd said.

When presented with a portion of the nearly 600-page report from Homeland Security, which Strowd said he had not seen or or heard of, he said such security measures may work for some parts of the country but not work in Florida because of all the storms.

"With the quantity and distribution of rainfall common in South Florida, it would, in my opinion, be impossible to construct a functioning storm sewer to those specifications," he said.

Strowd explained that a great deal of debris collects in storm sewers in South Florida, particularly during tropical events like a hurricane or tropical storm — which generally brings with it the heaviest rainfall and highest flows of water. Screens and grates would immediately clog from debris and likely produce severe and prolonged flooding, possibly creating a more acute risk to property damage as well as human health and safety over a much broader population.

"Certainly," Strowd said, "potential targets of terrorists would need to have all access points evaluated— and drainage systems could be part of that assessment. But to apply that specific approach across the board would be extremely expensive and likely create a flooding hazard to the larger community."

Michael Johnson, managing director for Clear Path, a risk consulting firm, agrees with Strowd that it wouldn't work in South Florida. He said the woman's claims are possibly an isolated incident.

"What's next?" he asked. "Having hotels with no balconies so people don't jump?"