Deputy City Manager Eric Bauer told the Deerfield Beach City Commission on Dec. 2 that a third‑party after‑action engineering report showed recent stormwater improvements in the Southeast 8th Avenue area reduced multi‑day standing water but did not prevent flooding during the Oct. 26 extreme rain event. "The project has worked for short term standing flood water. It is not designed and will not work for heavy flooding," Bauer said.

The report, prepared by Chen Moore & Associates and posted on the city's website, identified low topography (in places up to two feet lower than adjacent neighborhoods), a distant outfall to the Hillsborough Canal, and an exfiltration trench system sized for routine rainfall rather than extreme storms. Short‑term actions Bauer listed include completing an as‑built survey, performing construction inspections, obtaining engineer‑of‑record certification and running post‑construction modeling for the Oct. 26 event. He also said the city needs clearer emergency protocols and on‑call staffing because current mobile vacuum pumps are designed for drainage systems, not moving street water to another discharge point.

Commissioners and residents told the commission the event caused severe damage and ongoing worry. "We woke up to water in the house still," resident Jillian Lerner said, describing water that remained in streets and homes for hours after the storm. Thomas Nolan, a homeowner in the affected block, urged staff to investigate design failures and valve settings in the neighborhood drainage system, saying ties between the middle‑school parking lot and the 8th Avenue system may have increased flows to the lowest lying area.

Elected officials pressed for concrete solutions. Vice Mayor Ben Preston said consultants repeatedly arrive and report the same bottom line — that a location is low‑lying — without offering implementable fixes. He and others urged staff to consider "radical" alternatives including buyouts, raising homes on stilts, or creating a nearby engineered retention basin that would accept displaced water. Resident Roger Freitag suggested using vacant land near the Peggy Nolan Aquatic Center as a retention site and building a pumping station there.

Bauer cautioned that major options carry costs and regulatory hurdles: pump stations and deep injection wells are complex and county or state approvals could limit where the city may discharge stormwater. He also said the city’s community services team has not found state or federal grant programs that would assist individual homeowners with flood‑proofing or elevation, though staff will continue to search for funding opportunities and report back.

As an operational follow‑up, staff said they are evaluating on‑call procedures, revising after‑hours scripts, restructuring the contact tree for reporting, and exploring training and coordination with resources such as the CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and the Broward Sheriff's Office. Commissioners directed staff to prepare a scope and funding approach for a phase‑2 analysis (a deeper engineering study) and to return with procurement options and community engagement plans.

The mayor said the city will not rule out any option and pledged additional public input for residents most affected. The commission did not take a formal policy vote on specific capital projects during the meeting; staff were only directed to scope further study and report back.

The city posted the full Chen Moore & Associates report on the Department of Environmental Services page for public review; staff asked residents with questions to contact Environmental Services rather than the consultant.