The City of Chattanooga, Tenn. is contemplating a plan to spend $5 million to map the entire storm and sewage system, and to create a hydraulic model to alleviate problems that have arisen in its old and mostly unknown network.
“I think the recent rainfall showed we had water coming out of orifices (where) we never knew there were orifices,” said Jerry Stewart, director of the Department of Public Works.
Read the full story in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
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That’s funny. I used to live in Chattanooga. Actually, I was the GIS Support person at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga from 2002 to 2006.
Several years prior to my tenure there, the GIS prof, Doc Litchford, landed a grant from the city to install a Trimble basestation and acquire a couple Trimble DGPS units for the express purpose of mapping the city’s manhole covers.
Chattanooga is plagued with an ancient runoff management system. Like Chicago, the current downtown street level is built on top of the old first story level (catacombs!). Combine that with greater rainfall volume than Seattle and you get a mess that’s rarely seen outside of Tropics.