Detention basin prevents flooding

A $4.5-million detention basin held back the storm water during last week's downpours, preventing serious flooding along Cape LaCroix Creek, a Cape Girardeau city official said Tuesday.

The 150-acre detention basin, the final part of a $40 million federal flood control project designed to protect the city from flash flooding along Cape LaCroix Creek and its tributaries, was largely completed by last fall. The basin sits off Route W near the Humane Society animal shelter.

Bill Vaughn, development services coordinator for the city of Cape Girardeau, said the detention basin is "substantially complete" and has worked well.

The contractor still has to go over "a few punch list items" before the city will officially close the books on the project, he said.

Vaughn said he visited the detention basin a week ago today after the last in a series of storms dumped several inches of rain on already saturated ground.

Vaughn estimated that storm water covered about 60 acres at the detention site, where water is controlled by a 100-foot-wide concrete spillway, which is 27 feet high from the top of the spillway to the bottom of the creek.

Heavy rain caused Cape LaCroix Creek to flood in only one spot, on Mount Auburn Road just south of the Kingshighway intersection, Vaughn said. The creek would have overflowed elsewhere in the city without the basin, he said.