Crews responds to hundreds of sewer backup reports as Cincinnati recovers from historic flash flooding

Two weeks after historic flash flooding struck the Tri-State, Cincinnati is still recovering as the Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) works through hundreds of sewer backup reports and Hamilton County's emergency management agency continues to assess damage.MSD has received more than 1,800 reports since the storms and more than 900 of them have met eligibility requirements for cleaning services through the agency's sewer backup program."Those are people calling us saying they have water in their basement or they believe they have a sewer backup, and then we are going out and investigating those," MSD Director Diana Christy said.WATCH: Here's what MSD and EMA officials told Hamilton County commissioners about the ongoing storm recovery efforts Crews responds to hundreds of sewer backup reports as Cincinnati recovers from historic flash floodingMSD crews have completed nearly all of the 1,800 report investigations. Christy said much of the investigative work happens in the street, not inside individual homes, which means some residents may not have seen crews at their door."Folks want us to be moving even faster but we're doing really everything we can," she said.Some affected homeowners have raised questions over the last few weeks about whether the sewer system failed. Christy said that is not the case."This wasn't an operational issue," she said.

"It is just beyond the capacity of what our sewers are designed to convey."MSD Deputy Director and Chief Engineer Reese Johnson said both the volume and speed of rainfall were key factors in what overwhelmed the system."A concrete pipe can't expand to fit a larger storm, and so we design to a certain storm, and it can take all that it can take, and when it can't take any more, it floods," Johnson said.The July 17 storms produced what's known as a 1,000-year storm event near Norwood, meaning a storm that is so severe that, statistically, it has about a one-in-1,000 chance of happening in any given year. Johnson said MSD is fast-tracking 10 infrastructure projects aimed at addressing flooding hotspots across the county, following flood mitigation research."We pivoted and said, 'How can we find those smaller projects that are doable, that are more moderate in cost?'" Johnson said. "They're still millions of dollars, but they're not hundreds and billions of dollars.

And we're proceeding with those as quickly as we can…