It was back-to-back years of disaster for Boardman residents as historic floodwaters damaged property in both 2018 and 2019. Now, township trustees have an update to the timeline of a long-awaited solution.

"All of this takes a lot of time and a lot of money," says Boardman Township Road Superintendent Marilyn Kenner. 

The township approved the third FEMA grant at Monday's trustee's meeting for a total of 1.3 million dollars in grant money. A total of seven homes on Brookfield, Cadillac and Wildwood along Cranberry Run will be purchased and demolished with the help of those monies starting this spring.

"We will be getting homes out of the flood zone; we will be doing stream restoration to allow the stream to engage its banks during a flood stage, and we are working to mitigate the amount of flooding in the adjacent homes that will be remaining," adds Kenner. 

Deadlines stagger for the work to be completed between September of 2022 and February of 2023 based on when the grants were awarded. Kenner says all of this is just one part of the work they are doing in collaboration with the ABC water district.

"We are doing work with the Army Corps of Engineers to study the stream; we are putting flow monitors in the streams; we are looking to do some channel restoration in some other areas."

Kenner adds that green spaces will pop up in several of the locations they are demolishing.