Preparing for rain and flooding in Cape Coral

The City of Cape Coral, an area known to struggle with heavy rainfall, said it has one of the best stormwater management systems in the state.

WINK News reporter Camila Pereira asked Mark Elsner, the water supply bureau chief at South Florida Water Management District, why Cape Coral hasn’t seen any major flooding.

Elsner said we are not seeing any major flooding due to such a dry season and that this rainfall is what many in Southwest Florida need, especially Cape Coral, which needs to fill those dry wells and canals.

• READ MORE: Preparing for major rain and relief in Cape Coral

“Typically in preparing for heavy rain, we will drop the canal systems to allow storage in the canal. We don’t have to worry about that right now because there is storage in the canal because of the dry weather we’ve been having,” said Elsner, “so, from that area of preparation, there is storage volume in those canals. It’s just the delay on how hard the rain comes and how fast that water can move into the canal system or percolate in the ground.”

That doesn’t mean the city is not preparing for that worst-case scenario.

According to the City of Cape Coral, crews are monitoring storm drains in flood-prone areas to ensure there’s no major flooding, as we saw last time.

But the very low canal water levels from the dry season might be what’s saving those neighborhoods from that right now.