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by ChrisMarshallNY 1767 days ago
Good luck!

I’m not sure how much of an issue stormwater management is, in Arizona, but that was something my mother harped on, in Maryland.

Developers hate stormwater management, with a burning passion. My mother was not popular with them. Planned communities were notorious for not, er…planning for stormwater management. It usually required setting aside significant acreage, and doing a lot of fill work.

It was a really big deal, though. The communities that cut corners, suffered millions of dollars in damages, and often multiplied damages in other communities.

The dirty little secret about all these natural disasters; earthquakes, wildfires, volcanoes, tornadoes, etc., is that the single deadliest and most destructive force in nature, is good ol’ H2O.

2 comments

Phoenix doesn’t get much rain but it occurs in concentrated periods, so we have more experience with it than you might think.

In fact, part of why downtown Phoenix developed a few miles from the Salt River is because it had to avoid the seasonal flooding.

We have a plan for storm water management both during construction and long-term. We worked closely with the city on it.

Suffice it to say that stormwater management can be a Big Deal in Arizona as well. Even the DOT sometimes gets it wrong: when the news shows floating cars in Phoenix, it's quite often the I-17 where it crosses Greenway[1].

Fortunately for Culdesac, the area they're in is mostly flat and won't accumulate runoff from mountains, and is near canals and Tempe Town Lake (the Salt River), so they're probably pretty safe. Also developers were allowed to build Anthem about 45 minutes north in a wash. A coworker who just moved there mentioned today that he saw his neighbors' cars float by last week when it rained. So sadly your latter sentiment does seem to be in full force out here. But probably not in that area of Tempe.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=greenway%20underpas...