By Debby Woodin

dwoodin@joplinglobe.com

Jack Belden noticed it.

Belden, a former city councilman and mayor, observed that Joplin experienced heavy rain Monday and Tuesday, and the downtown didn’t flood.

The fact that the storm didn’t drown downtown wasn’t lost on David Hertzberg, the city’s public works director.

“I’ve been very pleased,” Hertzberg said of the Willow Branch storm drain system that taxpayers OK’d to alleviate downtown flooding. He said a storm in June of last year tested the system, too, and did what it was intended to accomplish.

“The storm drain system is designed for a 25-year storm, and it has been very successful,” Hertzberg said.

Voters, in authorizing a quarter-cent sales tax for parks and storm-water projects in 2001, approved a project to build large storm drains under Sixth Street that carries the water away from Willow Branch when it swells.

One problem cited with trying to develop the downtown a decade ago was flooding.

Hertzberg last year told the Globe that “Before the Willow Branch project, there was a 90 percent chance with each storm that the downtown would flood. Now, there’s a 90 percent chance with each storm that it won’t flood.”

The big storm-water projects are done for now. Hertzberg said that if one didn’t know better, it would look like the city isn’t doing anything on drainage projects. But, that’s not the case.

City engineer Dan Johnson is in the planning stages for some upcoming projects. In fact, about $2 million in such projects are planned this year, Johnson said.

There are some projects in the works to control flooding on the upper reaches of Willow Branch.

Johnson said residents will next notice work going on at Fourth and Fifth streets on Murphy Boulevard and later at Fifth Street and Cox Avenue to drain those areas better when it storms.

He said he watches proceeds of the sales tax mount up and then stages projects when there’s enough sales-tax money in the coffers to cover the work.