Families in the historic Peak’s Addition neighborhood of Old East Dallas are bracing for more rain with growing anxiety as a long-promised flood control project remains years away from completion.
Delores Lopez has lived on Alcalde Street for 27 years and knows all too well what heavy rainfall can bring. Floodwaters have previously surged into her home, displacing furniture and destroying vehicles. She says her 8-year-old granddaughter now panics at the sound of rain.
Photos taken in June show Lopez’s front yard completely submerged. Her neighbor Sarah Wilson faced a similar ordeal during the same storm, scrambling to move valuables to higher ground and secure her pets as water rose around her home.
The Mill Creek Drainage Relief Tunnel project was supposed to put an end to this cycle of fear. The massive infrastructure effort involves a 5-mile underground drainage tunnel running 75 to 150 feet below the surface, designed specifically to redirect floodwaters away from vulnerable neighborhoods like Peak’s Addition.
The project was originally scheduled for completion in 2024. However the City of Dallas confirmed to NBC 5 that the tunnel is only about 87 percent complete and is not expected to be fully finished until early 2029.
A city memo presented to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in January outlined the reasons for the delay. Officials cited COVID-19 supply chain disruptions, problems with parts for the tunnel boring machine and permitting changes that affected concrete production.
According to the city the concrete lining inside the tunnel is currently about 64 percent installed. The lining is composed of 15-inch non-reinforced concrete and excavation of the tunnel itself was completed back in the summer of 2022.
For residents near the intake shaft along Victor Street the slow progress is a source of deep frustration. Each storm season arrives before the relief they were promised ever does.
Wilson described the experience of the June flooding as absolutely terrifying. She and her family had no clear plan and were forced to improvise as water crept toward their belongings and animals.
Despite the ongoing uncertainty neighbors in Peak’s Addition have formed an informal support network. They monitor forecasts together and check on one another when threatening weather moves into the area.
With another round of rain in the forecast the community is once again watching the sky and waiting hoping the water stays manageable while the tunnel that was supposed to protect them remains unfinished beneath their feet.