Condo owners ask city to budget for flood fix

Residents of the Lighthouse Condominiums on Tuesday asked the Port Washington Common Council to include money in its 2020 budget to help protect their property from flooding.

Although money for the project wasn’t in the budget adopted Tuesday, Bob Dreblow, a former city engineer who was hired by the Lighthouse Condominium Association to help find a solution to persistent flooding, asked aldermen to find the money to install a trash rack on Valley Creek next year.

The city is studying various solutions to flooding in the area, Dreblow said, but the one constant in the four options under investigation is the addition of a trash rack that would prevent debris from clogging the culvert that directs stormwater to the lake.

That trash rack, Dreblow said, is “vital” to preventing flooding at the high-rise.

Residents of the condominium complex haven’t been sitting around waiting for the city to solve their issues, Dreblow and Condo Association President Greg Loebbaka told the Common Council.

The association has spent about $54,000 this year on flood mitigation efforts, they said.

“The condo association has been proactive,” Dreblow said. “The last thing that needs to be dealt with is the trash rack.”

“We know there’s a long, drawn-out process in deciding what to do (to mitigate flooding),” Loebbaka told aldermen. “This is a relatively low-cost item.”

The city’s consultant is currently working on a cost estimate for the trash rack, Dreblow said, and should have that figure next month.

The Lighthouse Condominiums, 415 Lake St., flooded in June 2008 after debris clogged the culvert and water from Valley Creek overflowed onto Lake Street and into the condo garage, the men said.

Twenty-one vehicles were destroyed and the building suffered $120,000 in damages and cleanup costs. The cost to each family in the building was about $2,500, Loebbaka said, not including the insurance deductible.

In August 2018, the building flooded again, when debris clogged the culvert during a storm. This time, 22 vehicles were destroyed and $180,000 in damage and cleanup costs were incurred.

The cost per family was $5,000, not including their insurance deductible.

In October, debris again clogged the culvert and the creek flooded, but this time the building was spared, the men said.

“It was a near miss,” Loebbaka said. “At the time, our residents were rapidly trying to get their cars out of the garage because they thought they saw the future coming.”

The condo association has taken a number of steps to protect the building, Dreblow said. It changed the manhole connections to the storm sewer, rebuilt the parking lot entrance to create a barrier against floodwaters and revised its sump pump system.

The association is also increasing the height of its east retaining wall to prevent water from flowing over the top and is in the process of installing generators to ensure the sump pumps will continue to operate in case of a power outage during a storm. The only thing the association can’t do is install the trash rack, Dreblow said, noting that’s a city responsibility.

City Administrator Mark Grams said the Finance and License Committee will be discussing capital projects at its next meeting.

While officials have said the budget is tight, Grams noted that the city seems likely to get a Harbor Assistance Grant that would cover between $500,000 and $700,000 of the cost of completing repairs to the far east end of the breakwater next year.

Since that is a project the city has borrowed money to finance, those funds would then be free for other initiatives, he said .

“A lot of that money is already spoken for,” Grams said, noting that the city needs to repair the roofs on the library and public works facility and cover other projects. “But obviously the trash rack will be a consideration.

“I’m sure that will be on the list.”