People in Morehead recently heard about the impact local flood mitigation efforts will have.
Last year Morehead received a FEMA grant to develop strategies to help lessen flooding. The City of Morehead has been teamed up with the Army Corp of Engineers to develop flood relief solutions for the area since 2017.
Bob Hawley is with Sustainable Streams, a company researching the flood mitigation model produced by the Army Corps of Engineers. He said that 2018 work was of no charge to Morehead and has given officials a substantial head start in planning.
“They had this idea of excavating a high flow channel from the cinemas down to Walton Street in the area of kind of the old FEMA buyouts and that would reduce the flooding by about .9 feet,” said Hawley.
Following the model, Hawley said officials also plan to remove an abandoned railroad bridge in the area. That’s expected to reduce flooding by at least half a foot.
During the Army Corps’ dredging of area flood plains in 2018, a sediment pile built up downstream of Clearfield Road. Hawley said removing this soil will lower flood levels by another .8 feet.
Hawley said the impact of this work will reach beyond Morehead.
“Salt Lick is farther downstream; they’re going to feel the benefits of that and then Mt. Sterling even farther; there is a lot of communities that are doing this,” Hawley said. “These results are just saying by giving the water more space it gets shallower.”
Hawley added the most effective way to give the water space is to create green sinks, which are excavated holes in a flood basin that hold water.
More information is available at morehead-ky.gov.