The drowning of an Oklahoma firefighter and a Texas teenager in storms that swept through the Southwest highlight the persistent dangers posed by storm drains that help protect neighborhoods during flash flooding but can suck in unsuspecting residents and rescue workers.
The deaths are renewing calls for cities to identify potentially dangerous drain openings and cover them with grates or add other safety measures.
Drainage systems constructed in many densely populated areas to collect stormwater feature wide drain openings at the bottom of open culverts or ditches that feed into long pipes. During floods, the drainage channels create powerful currents that can sweep people in, along with those trying to rescue them.
In Claremore, Oklahoma, on Saturday, Fire Capt. Jason Farley was leading a rescue crew that helped evacuate families from flooded duplexes in the Tulsa suburb when he stepped into a water-filled box culvert, said Fire Chief Sean Douglas.
Farley and another firefighter who tried to rescue him were pulled into a drain pipe. The other firefighter traveled 200 yards until he was ejected from the pipe and survived, but Farley got caught inside and died.
"The water was high enough you couldn't see the box culvert at all," Douglas said.
In the Dallas suburb of DeSoto, Texas, 14-year-old Damien Blade was walking his dogs when authorities believe he was swept into an opening in a neighborhood drainage system and drowned.
Several deaths or near-drownings occur every year in storm drains. In 2002, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommended that municipalities take steps "to minimize potential for injury" after the death of a Denver firefighter who was swept into a pipe while rescuing a woman stranded in a flood near a water-filled culvert.
Some local officials fear that covering the drains with grates might worsen flood damage to homes and property if they get clogged with debris.
"Clogging is one of our main concerns and that's why many municipalities have to evaluate storm inlets on a case-by-case basis," said Jon Durst, sewer superintendent in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where a 17-year-old boy died in a storm drain last summer. "You have to balance the risk."