ROANOKE, Va – Roanoke City is looking to make long-term upgrades to its stormwater system to prevent flooding downtown.
This morning staff presented long-term plans to city council.
The plans would create several projects over the next decade to upgrade and fix existing systems to prevent flooding downtown you are seeing here. Right now there are about 300 properties downtown at risk for flooding when heavy rain comes.
“We want to make sure we can take some reasonable measures to least reduce how often that happens so we have a few projects. We have completed analysis, things we have done and really looked at an analysis of downtown immediate watersheds,” Stormwater Utility Manager Ian Shaw said.
Staff also say if these projects aren’t completed the flooding could cost taxpayers millions of dollars in damages over the next several years.