With monsoon season arriving in the Borderland, El Paso County officials announced two major efforts aimed at reducing flood risks and improving how residents are warned when dangerous storms move in.
Congresswoman Veronica Escobar joined El Paso County, El Paso Water and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the announcement of a new countywide flood warning system on Tuesday.
“We live with increasingly dangerous storms during the monsoon season,” Escobar said. “The County of El Paso and El Paso Water came together to say, we’ve got to do a better job of warning people during some of these very dangerous storms.”
Officials said the flood warning system is in its first phase, with engineers developing a master plan designed to better warn residents about flooding.
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The system could use rainfall data, flood modeling and real-time monitoring to identify risks and alert the public and emergency responders.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is helping develop the master plan, which officials said will lay the foundation for a future alert network across El Paso County.
Funding for the flood warning system comes through federal Community Project Funding secured by Escobar.
Escobar’s office is contributing $325,000 toward the $1.3 million project.
El Paso Water Stormwater Chief Operations Officer Gisela Dagnino said the project could take two to three years, though an exact timeline and additional details were not available.
“This is a county-wide effort, and it will help benefit the entire community on responsiveness and on alertness and awareness,” Dagnino said.
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County officials also announced improvements to the Clardy Fox Pump Station in south-central El Paso.
Lt. Col. Matthew Miller said the project “will install three new pumps, 500 horsepower pumps, into this existing pump station for El Paso Water.”
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Miller said the upgrades are expected to bring the facility to its full design capacity, improve the region’s ability to move stormwater during heavy rainfall and help reduce flood risks in upstream neighborhoods.
County officials said the pump station project is funded mostly through federal dollars from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with El Paso Water contributing about $3.1 million toward the total cost of about $12.7 million.
Escobar said, “So these two projects together will not just help bring massive investment to the community that will protect us from major stormwater emergencies, but the warning system will actually warn people.”
Some El Paso residents said the upgrades are welcome.
One resident said, “I think it would be good and it would definitely be beneficial to the roads. Given all the flooding.”
Another said, “It would be a much better thing than we had before.”
The resident added, “Usually flash flood warnings are kind of too late since it’s already flooding the place.”
Dagnino said the pump station project could take up to 550 days to complete, with contractors expected to begin mobilizing in the coming weeks.
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