The Madison Road floodgate at Duck Creek will close at 9 a.m. Tuesday and re-open at 3 p.m., Greater Cincinnati Water Works announced.The closure will block traffic on Madison Road in both directions, the agency said.The City of Cincinnati's Stormwater Management Utility is heading up the closure, though GCWW did not say exactly why it's happening.Last week, City Manager Sheryl Long said during a press conference that the Duck Creek floodgate failed to close as it should have during a July 17 storm that overwhelmed the creek, causing it to flood the community nearby. Long said officials identified the floodgate did not close because of a mechanical malfunction; the gate is currently unable to close automatically as the creek rises, and can only be closed manually.In the same press conference, Greater Cincinnati Water Works Deputy Director Jason Fleming said the floodgate, which was built by the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers in 2008 and turned over to the city to maintain in 2012, has been regularly inspected, but issues with it are known.Fleming said in 2020, a study of the floodgate led to the recommendation the bridge be fully replaced something the city was not able to do. According to Fleming, replacing all the issues revealed in that study would require re-arranging property, roads, railroads and other crucial infrastructure in that area, which was something the city determined was not financially feasible.Long said the floodgate only impacted the area specifically around Duck Creek and the Madison Road bridge; she estimated it was around 40 homes and businesses, and the city has already begun reaching out to them to assess their damage. Flooding in the immediate vicinity of the Duck Creek floodgate may have been less severe if the floodgate had not failed, Long said, but the sheer amount of rain that fell within an hour on July 17 still would have caused issues.
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