Kristan Alvarez with KnD’s Resale N More says her business barely survived the first round of construction in downtown San Marcos, which was supposed to improve the drainage system on a flood-prone section of LBJ.
Since the work was completed this past spring, her store has already flooded twice. After the first flood, she closed for a week to clean up and remodel.
“We opened up on a Friday of last week and flooded June 28, Sunday of that week, so very frustrating,” Alvarez said.
The city is working on a solution.
“Just in the hard rains, I mean when we get a rain of 1 to 2 inches in about 30 minutes. That’s when they’re experiencing the troubles,” the city’s Michael Cardwell said.
On Tuesday, the City Council gave the green light to a project it hopes will help divert much of the water. Work is expected to begin shortly.
“Once he starts, he’ll have 30 days to do the project and that will be from LBJ to Guadalupe,” Cardwell said.
Alvarez hopes this will keep her store from flooding, even as she faces another round of construction.
“It does scare me that we’re going to have more construction, but I feel like if I’ve passed two years we did have construction, hopefully this isn’t going to last two years and I’ll be able to make it,” Alvarez said.
City officials say the problems are likely the result of changes to the plans that happened over the multi-year project.
Project managers for both the city and construction company also changed during the project.
The planned work is part of the original plan with some expansion of the drainage system.