Three Westside neighborhoods in Corpus Christi are set to receive drainage improvements after the city secured about $6 million in federal funding to help reduce flooding along La Volla Creek.
The funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency will support the second phase of a drainage project affecting the La Molina, Los Encinos and Las Colonias neighborhoods.
Residents say the improvements are long overdue, with heavy rain often making it difficult to travel in and out of their homes.
“Down the street there, it floods down there all the time,” La Molina resident Flenoy Phillips said.
Phillips, who has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years, said some areas are worse than others, but he has seen certain streets flood repeatedly.
“It’s been long overdue. That’d be great. This part of town, I think, sometimes gets overlooked,” Phillips said.
Emma Acosta, another La Molina resident, said flooding can prevent people from leaving their homes, particularly those who drive smaller cars.
“When it rains, well, we can’t go out if we have low cars, then we can’t always go out and so we stay home instead,” Acosta said.
Residents say some areas experience worse flooding than others, with water sometimes making streets difficult to navigate.
“Those problems should go away with those improvements on that drainage system,” Ernesto De La Garza said.
De La Garza explained that the city has already made progress on the project. The first phase, which included construction of a detention pond, is substantially complete.
“Our phase one project is substantially complete, that’s the detention pond that we started a couple of years ago. And then now this new grant, which is a $6 million grant, gets us to phase two of that project. And so there are culverts underneath SPID as well as underneath Holly that we’re gonna go and add capacity to the drainage system,” De La Garza said.
The next phase will focus on increasing drainage capacity by adding improvements to culverts beneath South Padre Island Drive and Holly Road.
Corpus Christi City Councilman Roland Barrera said the project could also help residents save money on flood insurance.
“When the FEMA maps were redrawn, those people were now brought into the flood plain, was expanded where they were more in a flood zone,” Barrera said. “Now with this project, then all of a sudden, that’s going to make changes and so their flood insurance premiums will go down.”
De La Garza said the city is drafting agreements with the Texas Department of Transportation to complete the drainage upgrades beneath SPID and Holly Road.
Once those agreements are finalized, the city will seek construction bids to determine which company will complete the work.
De La Garza said construction is expected to take about a year and a half to complete.