ELLICOTT CITY (WBFF) — Howard County promised a $140 million plan to protect Ellicott City from catastrophic flooding after three people died in 2016 and 2018. Ten years after the first deadly flood, the price has nearly tripled to $386 million — and the county’s largest public works project still isn’t finished.
A decade after flash floods devastated Ellicott City twice in less than two years, the effort to prevent such an event from happening again has become what one former County Council member calls a “political football” — reshaped by shifting county leadership even as the clock keeps ticking.
After the 2018 flood, newly elected Howard County Executive Calvin Ball, a Democrat, proposed different flood mitigation options, landing on a plan promising projects to ease future flooding at an estimated cost between $113 million and $140 million. The final plan, known as Ellicott City Safe & Sound, includes warning alert systems and signage, as well as five stormwater ponds, a pair of culverts on lower Main Street and the Extended North Tunnel, which will divert water away from Main Street into the Patapsco River.
Initially, the plan was set to be completed by mid-2025. So far, three of the ponds have been completed, while construction of the tunnel, the county’s largest public works project, is underway. The remaining two ponds and the culverts are in the design phase while the county works to secure additional funding for their construction.
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