While no Hinesville homes reported any flooding issues resulting from Tropical Storm Debby, city officials are looking at ways to alleviate street flooding in neighborhoods where it is a problem.

City Manager Kenneth Howard briefed city council members on the city’s response to the tropical storm, which dumped seven inches of rain in three days.

“The city felt we fared pretty well,” he said. “But we did have some flooding.”

The amount of rain overwhelmed part of the city’s stormwater runoff and its sewage system, as rainfall got in through manhole covers.

The city’s wastewater treatment plant on Fort Stewart is permitted to treat up to 7.15 million gallons of water per day. But the rainfall getting into the system pushed that total well above the grace level state environmental officials allow, Howard said.

“When you exceed that threshold, EPD has guidelines that everything that goes through there we have to call a spill,” he said.

On August 5, because of the excessive rain, the city partially treated 11.12 million gallons through its treatment plant.

“All of that is considered a spill,” Howard said. “However, all of it went through the system. One of the things we realized, and a lot came through inflow and infiltration of storm water, when we get torrential rain like we did, it finds a way to go somewhere.”

That rain, Howard said, typically goes through the manholes. He also emphasized that the spill notices did not mean the city was dumping millions of untreated gallons of water.

There was, however, a power failure at a pump station, leading to a spill of 7,125 gallons of raw sewage and there was a spill of 599,000 gallons from manholes on three city streets on August 8.

Some residents also reported sewage backups into their homes.

“Our system is operating normally right now,” Howard said.

Streets in the Pineridge subdivision off Airport Road were flooded, particularly Loblolly and Pineridge streets.

“The water is coming out of the wetlands and is flowing onto the streets,” Howard said. “The volume is such that it overwhelmed the drainage structure and has nowhere else to go but in the streets.”

In that area, standing water can last for three to four days, Howard said. A flume designed to take water out actually served to bring water in because the volume of water was so much that the flow reversed itself, he added.

“The storm drains were so overwhelmed,” he said.

Pineridge is on an island in wetlands, Howard said, so finding a place for the water to go is difficult.

“There are structures we need to get to and some structures we need to install or replace,” Howard said.

There was also street flooding in the Crystal Lakes subdivision, Howard said.

“Our primary focus for right now is how do we mitigate the situation we encountered,” he said. “We need to get all of our structures functional so they can serve in their maximum capacity.”

At least one is an area that has become overgrown, Howard noted. But he was relieved no homes reported flood damage.

“I give credit to staff for working with our contractors,” he said. “The water came into the street but not into the homes.

“The good part is the flooding was in the streets and not in the homes. Our entire team is responsible for this because when you design these subdivisions and maintain these structures, the water is going where it is supposed to go.”

Howard also said the city enacted its protocols to protect the homeless population from the storm. With the help of the city’s police and fire departments, 35 adults and 27 minors were housed at a cost of $3,200 to the city.

“We were able to get them to safe shelter,” Howard said.

Also, there were 150200 reported power outages throughout the city, but those outages were remedied quickly, according to Howard.

Mayor Karl Riles commended the city’s public works department and the fire and police departments for their work during the storm.

“A lot of the surrounding areas had issues we didn’t have here in Hinesville, and the issues we did have were solved relatively quickly,” the mayor said. “So thank you to the employees of the City of Hinesville and to ESG, you did a wonderful job and we’re proud to have you.”

Council members also offered plaudits to the city’s crews in their storm response.

“I think the Hinesville team is the best around in the area,” Council member Jason Floyd said.

“We live in a good city because everything around us got hit hard and Hinesville sustained itself,” added Council member Jose Ortiz.