Flood Control

The City of Minneapolis designs flood control projects to minimize the impact on the water quality of the receiving surface water, in addition to providing localized flooding relief. Since 1997, the City Of Minneapolis has completed 21 Flood Mitigation projects, and currently have a total of 11 additional projects that are slated for future construction.

Flood Mitigation Program

The 1997 torrential rainstorms caused flooding in areas that had not flooded in many years. The amount of water that fell was just so great that City storm and sewer systems couldn't keep up. Water backed up onto streets, into basements, creeks and rivers, and into any other place it could go.

The Minneapolis Flood Mitigation Program was created to lessen the effects of severe storms in the identified areas.

The Program identified the following actions:

• Construct additional detention basins and stormwater holding ponds
• Construct new and upgrade existing storm drains to provide better protection for homes
• Replace old catch basin grates with new ones designed to allow more water in
• Construct additional catch basin inlets, so streets can drain quickly
• Identify streets that experience flooding as a result of inadequate storm drain system capacity
• Install back-up generators for existing pump stations
• Increase inspection and maintenance of catch basin inlets and storm drains located in flood-sensitive areas
• Decrease property flooding caused by sanitary sewer back-ups by
  

1) Removing cross-connections between storm and sanitary systems.

2) Reduce the volume and duration of ponding water during and after rainstorms.

1) 3) Replacing standard sanitary manhole covers in low areas with watertight sealed covers
These measures also have the added benefit of reducing Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) - for more information see the Minneapolis CSO Solution

For more information about protecting yourself and your property from flooding hazards, see Flood Information.