Description

Directly under the point of view of the photographs, in front of 1304 Broadway, is a chronically locked storm drain entrance. Unfortunately, it is of the sort that instead of feeding a culvert flows shallowly under the intersection, crossing Ensenal, and resurging on Broadway flowing towards the Bay. This flooding is typical of what occurs most every time that there is significant rainfall and this has been the case for the over 20 years that I have lived here. There have been efforts to clean out this drain that have been, at best, only partially successful. They are however, that are the nothing. Prior to this rainfall event I worked over the course of several days to remove accumulated leaves from in front of my house and the next four houses upstream, in addition, I used shovels, hoes, clippers, and a propane torch to remove as much of the accumulated sediment, stabilized by roots, from within the mouth of the storm drain.

Nonetheless, this morning, the intersection was seriously flooded. In the attached photograph, image A is taken from a point standing above the storm drain, looking towards the Bay, showing inundation of Broadway across the entire sidewalk, submerging the base of the stoplight, extending across the bicycle lane, and nearly to the centerline of Broadway; image B shows the rooster tail thrown into the air by traffic proceeding down Broadway; image C is a view from the same location facing towards the estuary, showing inundation across the entirety of 1306 Broadway as well. Note that in image C the inundation extends into my driveway, which fortunately gains another inch of elevation before sloping down into my garage and office. Should, however, the inundation have reached another inch of depth water would've poured into both of our garages, my office and the family room in 1306 causing major property damage.
I request that a serious, significant, and permanent remediation be implemented by our Alameda Department of Public Works.