Work to Reduce Flooding in North Park Nears Completion

Heavy flooding that has plagued the North Park neighborhood for more than five decades may soon be corrected — or at least reduced — as workers install a new section of pipe for a  storm drain improvement project that the city originally wanted to complete before school opened in September.

Patch reported in July that the City of Long Beach had entered a contract agreement with All Island Plumbing to alleviate most of the flooding concerns in the Riverside Boulevard drainage area, just south of Reynolds Channel. The Long Beach Herald reports this week that the project is in its final stages and will likely come to completion in the coming weeks. City Manager Charles Theofan said:

“It took two years of real study and figuring out the most cost-effective way to solve the problem. It should’ve been done sooner, but it presented a lot of technical problems.”

As Patch reported, the project involves the installation of a CheckMate valve, a new technology that operates by using sensors and involves more sophisticated equipment than a Tideflex valve, which is being employed in other parts of the city to control flooding, city officials said.