35th and Hillen Flood Mitigation -Special Announcement

On Thursday, October 28th, we announced a special partnership between Baltimore City and the State of Maryland to eliminate the flooding on 35th and Hillen Road. Chair McIntosh and the 43rd District Delegation got us an initial $5million to begin work on this important issue. This funding can be leveraged for more. Expertise from the state is available.

As you can recall, at least once a year for decades there is massive flash flooding leading to damaged homes, cars, and sometimes massive physical and emotional injuries. Two years ago, Ms. Luallen who lives on that block showed me a photo of the same flooding in 1957. Residents have had to endure this for decades, and should no longer have to.

Working with DPW all summer, we learned that rain water from 700 acres of land comes into 35th and Hillen at the same time during flash flooding events where massive rain ours down in the same area all at the same time. Those 700 acres have 1200 inlets that lead to the same storm pipe. The pipe that is below 35th street designed for stormwater has a river running through it called the Tiffany Run. When Ednor Gardens-Lakeside was developed, the river was piped. There is hardly any room for more water.

So here are the next steps:

-evaluations will begin to understand where water is getting into each resident’s basement. DHCD and DPW will work with residents to flood proof their basements while we wait for the larger infrastructure project.

-DPW is conducting an H and H analysis on three infrastructure options: (a) adding more inlets but making sure they are leading to other storm drains (b) digging up the pipe along 35th street and putting in a new one (c) re-routing the water to another area.

You can already see some work being done along Lake Montebello - there is a pipe in between the water treatment plant and the lake that is broken and could be part of the reason why Hillen and 33rd gets so flooded. Repairing this pipe is part of the puzzle.

DPW’s project manager is Cherod Hicks and he lives in the community. His expertise and love for our community will ensure that this project actually resolves the issue.

On Thursday we heard from Ms. Luallen and her husband. They thanked everyone for bringing attention to this issue, but said no more press conferences until we have a solution. And we agreed.

We will continue to keep everyone up to date on this blog and other sources.