Meadow Lake subdivision residents were living in a rerun during heavy rains last weekend.

“It happens every time we have a terrible rain like that,” Jefferson County Commission President Jimmie Stephens said of the western-area community. “Anytime we get probably an inch to an inch and a half that area has problems.

“It’s water that backs up in the street and goes up into driveways and up into yards,” he continued. “I’m making a jump here, but it’s probably from a lack of adequate drainage when the developer put it in there. Thank goodness we’re getting ready to get it taken care of.”

The commission put on its agenda for Thursday a resolution to award a drainage improvement contract to work on those issues.

“These people are going to now have the county engaged and perhaps have some relief,” he said. “It was very unusual. The stormwater and drainage were routed behind the houses, and that made it a unique and very difficult situation for the county. That’s kind of like working on someone’s driveway, paving their driveway. You can’t do that.”

Helen Hays, public information officer for the county, said the county had to acquire right-of-way and publicly bid the project, which could begin in May.

“Since taking on the failed subdivision, the county has paved it and investigated the drainage issues. We have on many occasions, including this past weekend, pumped out the flooded area to facilitate draining the area faster,” she said.

Stephens said Meadow Lake has long been on the commission’s radar.

“We’ve tried to help for, I guess, close to a decade now,” the commission president said.

He said approving a contract to work on the flooding issues tells people in the subdivision that “government works, but they work very, very slow.”

“I’m excited to be able to see some improvements in that community filled with wonderful families, and I apologize for it taking as long as it did,” he said.

This story has been corrected to reflect that the contract is on Thursday’s agenda for a vote, and it is not an “emergency” resolution but one that required acquiring rights-of-way and going through a bid process.