Engineering based on outdated rainfall assumptions
This culvert, built in the last two decades, was simply inadequate to handle the amount of rainfall we got on July 16, 2024. The solution: opening up the stream below the switchback path up to Chorley Park, so that the undersized culvert is no longer there to dam a rainstorm and so cause the creek to spill over and undercut the wall protecting the Brickworks from the higher-up stream.
The lesson: We have to plan for heavier and more frequent rainstorms. With summertime water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico now close
to 30o C and climbing every year, causing progressively more evaporation from the Gulf and so more water in the air to fall as rain across eastern
North America, climate change is not something that can be ignored. Flooding will only increase.