University City Flood Warning System

University City suffers periodic flash flooding from the River Des Peres, triggered by heavy rainfalls. The intensity of the rainfalls within the watershed is predictive of such floods. This project consists of a municipal flood warning system (FWS), developed for the city by the Stormwater Commission. Three automated rain gauges distributed over the watershed telemeter rainfall data in real-time to a control center. The control center collects, records and analyzes data and issues alarms when rainfall exceeds a predetermined threshold that is predictive of flooding, based on historical records. Alarms go to the U City's emergency dispatch, which will issue public warnings via the city's CodeRED emergency notification system. The alarm threshold is when the average of the 1-hour rainfall reports from the three gauges exceeds 1.5". It is not possible to predict the extent of flooding at the time of the initial alarm, just that some degree of flooding is likely within an hour from the warning. Subsequent CodeRED updates may be issued.