Kelly Kenoyer
Sweet Home residents experienced some unusually high water Sunday, Dec. 20, after heavy rains fell for 24 hours over the weekend.
Public Works Director Greg Springman said his staff recorded 3.1 inches of rainfall in a six- to eight-hour period. The police department received 28 calls on Sunday related to flooding, according to Communications Commander Penny Leland. One call reported water that impacted the interior of a home on 38th and Long.
Public Works received many more.
The rain overwhelmed the wastewater treatment plant’s influent station, and some untreated water flooded into the creek, Springman said.
“The system isn’t designed to handle almost an act of God,” he added. “Wastewater plants all over Oregon overflowed.”
One backup was attributed to a clogged release line on 18th, where tree roots had grown into a 24-inch pipe. The roots captured trash and debris, Springman said, blocking the flow of water. But Public Works staffers fixed it once they found it.
“We have a nozzle that has such high pressure that it shreds up to a certain size of wood,” Springman said. “It damages a lot of the fine roots and for the majority it allows you to get it out of there.”
Springman said he’s never seen such severe flooding in Sweet Home in the four years he has lived here. Even the deck by the boat ramp near the water treatment plant was covered in water.
Some of that excess water in the watershed came from snowmelt up in the mountains, he said, but a lot of the water around town has receded now that the rain has slowed and given the pipes time to drain.
Public Works scrambled all over Sweet Home to address impacted homes all along 13th, as well as more homes on 38th and Long. But as of the morning of Monday, Dec. 21, “everything is back to normal,” Springman said.