Oxford officials seek flood fix for southern subdivision

April 12--OXFORD -- No one told Scott and Sue Lott they'd need flood insurance on the brick house in a McIntosh Road subdivision they bought more than a decade ago.

"The first six years we lived here, we had no problem," Lott said Wednesday in his living room. Things changed, though. Lott knows now not to be too surprised if, after a heavy rain, floodwater laps at his driveway.

When enough rain falls fast enough, the creek that runs through the southern end of Lott's subdivision overruns its banks for the yards of the homes nearest.

"It's never come into the house," he said, but it's gotten close.

On Northwood and Southwood drives, and Lazy Brook and Anna Brook lanes, the neighborhood's location -- bisected as it as by a Federal Emergency Management Agency flood zone -- allows flash flooding to block entrance and exit. That's a cause for concern among city officials, who seek a way to lessen the flooding.

"We've got to have the ability to access those roads," Oxford Mayor Alton Craft said Wednesday afternoon, not long before he'd tour the neighborhood. Craft said the city received calls about flooding from residents there during torrential rain April 5.

They were far from the only residents affected by flooding that day, though. Four roads were closed, and lakeside walking trails at the city's new Choccolocco Park were swamped for several days. Rains in the past have submerged residents and damaged businesses, overwhelming the low-lying city's drainage systems.

The city's plan for the southern subdivision, now, Craft said: replace a culvert, clear the creek, and build escape routes.

Craft said a culvert underneath Northwood Drive -- the first part of the subdivision built -- isn't up to snuff. He and the city's engineer and Street Department superintendent visited the neighborhood Wednesday to talk about the proposed solution.

That solution is to replace the pipe with a larger, concrete culvert system, city engineer Rusty Gann said. Gann made that recommendation to the City Council one year ago; council members learned Tuesday that a gas line near the culvert in question had just been moved, and that work on the replacement might start in May.

Gann said city workers will also trim back vegetation along the creek and clear the creek bed of fallen trees and other debris, which should make it easier for floodwaters to flow.

None of that is going to completely solve the problem, though.

"At the end of the day, it's still a floodplain," Gann said.

So Craft has suggested to members of the City Council that alleyways be built along the northern end of the subdivision, linking it with Gable Lane and, thereby, Alabama 21.

That'd give folks living in higher-sitting houses on that northern end the ability to leave via another route in the case of flooding, the mayor said. He doesn't know yet how much those extra connections would cost.

Meanwhile, the subdivision's residents will wait, knowing that nothing will stop the rain.

Lott, who worries about the value of his flood-prone property, feels confident that once Northwood's culvert is replaced and the creek cleared, the problem will be solved.

He said that city officials made "every effort to help resolve" that problem, but still wonders about the subdivision he's lived in for 12 years and the flood zone it sits atop.

"Why did they allow the development through here?" he asked.

Staff writer Zach Tyler: 256-235-3564. On Twitter @ZTyler_Star.

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