Six years before Duck Creek swallowed Madison Road on Friday, July 17, an engineering firm told Cincinnati exactly how to prevent it.

The Kleingers Group, an engineering firm with Cincinnati offices, delivered a report to the city's Stormwater Management Utility in late 2020 recommending that Cincinnati replace the Madison Road bridge over Duck Creek in Oakley and eliminate the floodgate beneath it. The new bridge would have rendered the floodgate unnecessary, lowered flood insurance costs for nearby property owners, and protected Madison Road even during a 500-year flood, the report stated.

The city never built it.

Instead, the nearly century-old bridge and its floodgate remained the only defense when approximately 6 inches of rain fell on Oakley on July 17, according to National Weather Service data reported by WVXU. The floodgate did not close during the storm, a Cincinnati Fire Department official confirmed that weekend. Duck Creek overflowed its banks, flooding homes and businesses across Oakley, Hyde Park and Mount Lookout. The Metropolitan Sewer District received more than 900 reports of sewer backups and basement flooding.

The report's language was blunt. The existing bridge's concrete foundation sits on both sides of the creek bed, forcing water into a narrow passage. "The existing bridge is a severe restriction to the flood flows in Duck Creek," the Kleingers Group wrote. "The waterway opening is simply far too small for this stream."

The report concluded that a replacement bridge with wider-spaced support columns and a new upstream levee would provide protection the current infrastructure cannot. It also noted the floodgate and its railroad-style crossing gates — which lower across Madison Road to block traffic when the creek rises — had never worked precisely as designed since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers installed them in 2008. The city took over operation in 2012, and the report found the floodgate had not been activated at all between 2012 and 2020.

Rather than pursue the bridge replacement, city procurement records show Cincinnati in April 2026 put out a bid to replace only the crossing gates — a $60,000 option the report listed as a possibility but did not recommend. The Office of Procurement canceled that bid before responses were due June 15 and planned to republish it in July after the new fiscal year opened.

Then the storm hit.

City spokeswoman Mollie Lair told the Cincinnati Enquirer she did not have information about the 2020 engineering report and could not immediately respond to questions about it. The report did not include a cost estimate for the full bridge replacement, noting only that the work would not be "inexpensive or without difficulties."

An important caveat: civil engineers and city officials have said the July 17 storm probably would have overwhelmed any flood mitigation system. It is impossible to know how much protection a new bridge might have provided.

Still, council members are demanding answers about the city's stormwater infrastructure. Councilmember Mark Jeffreys told WLWT on Monday, July 20, that while stormwater management is developing a master plan, "the question is, what can we do between now and when that plan is implemented." Councilmember Anna Albi said getting answers about the floodgate is "absolutely important" and that her neighborhood of Madisonville "deserves answers."

Mayor Aftab Pureval issued a declaration of emergency on Tuesday, July 21, enabling the city to pursue state and federal assistance. He said a full review of the flooding response has already started. The city is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to investigate whether the floodgate malfunctioned.

Fire Captain Derek Hunt, whose Heavy Rescue 14 crew pulled two people from the roof of a car on Madison Road during the July 17 storm, told WVXU reporters on Monday, July 20: "We just don't expect rapids in the middle of the city."

No City Council hearing on the 2020 report or the bridge replacement has been scheduled. The investigation with the Army Corps of Engineers is ongoing with no announced timeline.