While recent rainfall amounts are well above average, heavy rain does periodically occur in Memphis. With such weather, concerns about neighborhood flooding have surfaced, as captured above, on Thursday, in the University district.

Regardless of recent historical rain totals, neighborhood flooding continues to occur with little if any imporvement over previous years and while, in some cases, taxpayers are blamed by public officials for not keeping drains cleared. To add to the concern, the University district may have been left out of any public efforts to manage stormwater. 

What Memphis and Shelby Countians don’t know is that millions have been obscurely spent to prevent neighborhood flooding through the City of Memphis stormwater management program. The program is funded through a flat $6.03 City of Memphis monthly fee collected through MLGW billing. The program is much like the Sports Authority, where few in the public really know the details of the program's scale. 

A few years back, I was shocked when the Mayor Jim Strickland Administration awarded a $19M contract to AllWorld, a local minority business for stormwater management. The Allworld total contract has since grown to $31M. 

Even more alarming, since 2019, $267K has been spent on stormwater awareness, education and promotion. Yet it seems impossible to get a coherent progress update on $46M in City of Memphis stormwater expenditures since 2019.

Meanwhile, The Boyzzz in Council Chair Ford Canale and Councilor JB Smiley, Public Works Committee Chair, cannot seem to get a stormwater update on the Council agenda. On the Historic Council agenda is Overton Park drainage and the "pressing need" to spend more money on connecting the Riverfront. Anyway, here is a complete listing of stormwater contracts since 2019.