City engineer Carter Delleney, left, talks with homeowner Wanda Cuvelier on Thursday as work proceeds in the background to repair a storm water drainage canal which runs through Mrs. Cuvelier's back yard and those of her neighbors on Thursday in the Ashmore Subdivision in Tyler. It's going to cost an estimated $2 million to repair the section of canal which collapsed in November, taking portions of several properties with it, due to a mix of heavy rains and a flawed design for one of the retaining walls which was supposed to hold back the yards of soil saturated with water due to heavy rains, Delleney said. (Andrew D. Brosig/Tyler Morning Telegraph via AP)

Tom Curtis’ backyard is covered in a large blue tarp to keep his soil from washing into an active construction project.

Half of his backyard already has slipped into the ditch after a retaining wall failed and fell into a drainage channel at the back of his property in late November.

Crews have since been working to clear the drainage channel, while an engineering firm works to figure out a long-term solution and the city crunches numbers on how to pay for the repairs. Two of Curtis’ neighbor’s yards also were affected, accounting for roughly 200 feet of damage.

On Nov. 30, Curtis, 65, and his wife were bustling around their home on Evansburg Lane, in the Ashmore Estates – a private, gated community off Old Jacksonville Highway. The couple’s neighbors visited to tell them their yard was washing way, and Curtis watched a few hours later as the rest of it sunk – washing away a decorative pond, landscaping and a raised garden bed about 20 feet.

City workers helped put sandbags along the spot closest to the home’s foundation.

Curtis said he now pays closer attention to weather reports, but is glad no one was injured. He said the city has been helpful given the situation.

“Someone could have gotten hurt,” Curtis said. “This can get fixed; it just takes time. We are always praying for the workers that they stay safe through their daily routines.”

UNAUTHORIZED WALL

City Engineer Carter Delleney said the retaining wall likely fell because of the weight of saturated soil and landscaping leaning against an improperly designed wall.

The city has no records of who built that wall.

Tyler owns the right of way to the drainage easement, which connects to businesses on the east side of Old Jacksonville, under the roadway through the Ashmore subdivision and eventually through to the Hollytree subdivision.

According to the city, the channel was designed by the Brannon Corp., but those designs did not include a retaining wall on top of it. It wasn’t made for that kind of weight, Delleney said.

The affected homes sit on the south side of the channel and were built in the early 2000s. The city doesn’t keep residential plans for that long, Delleney said.

“We can’t find plans for the wall,” he said. “We can’t say it was designed by the city, and we can’t say it was built properly. It was built 10-plus years ago. The electric records we have for these houses don’t say anything about a retaining wall, which isn’t uncommon.”

The city will fix the retaining wall, but all landscaping and irrigation will be left to the homeowners to repair.

A LONG FIX

It could be a year before Curtis gets his backyard back.

Tyler has hired KSA Engineers for $370,000 to do design work to fix the retaining wall and drainage structure. The new design will be an underground channel versus the open channel currently in place.

In the meantime, Tyler street and drainage crews are working to break up and remove the debris and lay down a temporary way for water to flow through the blocked channel.

Incrementally, debris is pulled up and a pair of concrete drainage pipe is laid down and covered with dirt. That will provide the temporary drainage the city needs to ensure the blockage doesn’t cause flooding elsewhere along the drainage channel, Delleney said.

Once the plans are done, the city will competitively bid out the construction work.

FEMA

The city expects construction to cost between $1 million and $2 million, but the city won’t know for sure until final design plans are complete.

That’s on top of the engineering firm, equipment rental and city crew’s time.

As of now, all expended money is being taken out of the half-cent sales tax fund on an emergency basis, but Tyler has been in discussions with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, to see if it qualifies for federal assistance.

Delleney said Tyler will know in about a month if FEMA will help the city with funding.

If approved, FEMA would pay for 75 percent of all qualifying expenses, based on a list of categories.

“FEMA meetings have gone well,” Delleney said. “The next step is we have to put together a project worksheet. That is what allows us to get reimbursed. The max is 75 percent of whatever is eligible, based on those categories.”

It will be up to FEMA on how much it pays out, but Delleney said 75 percent of the cost of the engineering firm, equipment rental and possibly staff time could be reimbursed to the city.

Delleney said FEMA is working closely with the city to properly categorize the expenses to maximize its reimbursement potential.

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