CINCINNATI — Officials with the Metropolitan Sewer District and the Cincinnati Fire Department are investigating a potential gasoline spill into the sewer system in West Price Hill, the two agencies announced over the weekend.

According to a news release, investigators believe the leak occurred on Dec. 24, potentially from a gas station. As part of the investigation, a gas station at Eighth Street and Pedretti Avenue closed and emptied its underground storage tanks.

Investigators believe as many as 360 gallons of gasoline may have entered the sewer system. CFD became aware of the potential leak after nearby residents reported odors in their homes.

MSD began flushing the sewers with water on Dec. 24 in an attempt to dilute the spill and suppress the odor.

MSD officials advised residents living on Cappel Drive and Carnation and Hermosa avenues to take the following precautions:

• Limit ignition sources such as candles and any other flaming devices
• Run water in basement floor drains to reduce fumes and odors in the home (for drains without traps, they should be plugged to prevent odors)
• Crack windows in the home to reduce fumes

The Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati has been awarded a grant to demolish 35 flood-prone properties near Muddy Creek in Green Township and Cincinnati.

The $4 million grant from FEMA and the Ohio Emergency Management Agency announced Friday, plus $570,000 from MSD in local cost share, will be used to purchase those properties along Muddy Creek Road between Glenway Avenue and Westbourne Drive.

In a release Friday, MSD said property owners have volunteered to participate in the program.

Provided, Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati

The project seeks to address years of flooding along Muddy Creek, where homeowners have experienced flooding and sewer backups.

FROM JUNE: County, MSD find solution to the years-long stink over Muddy Creek

MSD said those homes were constructed in the 1950s in the former creek bed, which was enclosed in a sewer.

The grant funding, expected in early spring, MSD will begin working to acquire those properties and relocate residents to "safe and comparable housing."

After the homes are demolished, MSD will work to "restore the area as a natural floodplain or stormwater management area," a process estimated to take about two years.

MSD is also working with OEMA on a second grant request for up to five more properties on Muddy Creek Road.

CINCINNATI — A recent string of heavy rain earlier this summer had Jenn Bastos feeling like a fish out of water for seven weeks while she ran her store out of an adjacent building due to extensive flood damage. Now, with the remnants of Hurricane Ida making their way into the Tri-State, she worries she might be in store for some deja vu.

"Every time it rains, I get nervous," said Bastos, who owns Castle House on Edwards Road near Hyde Park Square. It's an area she said sees more and more flooding each year.

Hyde Park isn't alone: City Councilman David Mann called upon City Council's Neighborhoods Committee Monday to discuss how hundred-year flooding — that is, flooding so heavy that it historically would only occur every century or so — is becoming more and more common in the region.

"We had, at the peak of it, I was told about 12 inches of water in the store," Bastos said of the flooding that forced her business to relocate in July. She said she was lucky that she was able to move temporarily into a nearby storefront after the last round of heavy storms, but said the cost of repeated flooding threatens a lot of small businesses like hers.

Kyle Robinson owns Peace and Love Little Donuts just a few doors from Castle House. He worries that, with the next big rain, his business could be next.

"(The flooding in July) stopped two doors before us," Robinson said. "And literally across the street, everywhere was closed; there was debris all over the streets. We have business insurance that covers stuff like that, but it’s still the time down, cleaning up, being closed. It doesn’t cover fully all that. To see it happen so close, it's definitely scary."

READ MORE: Hyde Park residents blame MSD for sewage, flood damage

It's an issue Cincinnati City Council's Neighborhoods Committee discussed Monday, looking at the city's sewer and stormwater systems' ability to handle sudden downpours of heavy rain.

In a motion filed last month, shortly after the heavy rain in early July, Mann called on the administration to develop a "long-term plan for addressing the reality that hundred-year floods are now a regular challenge for our community."

Mann elaborated Monday: "It’s not clear to me that our system, which wasn’t built to handle it, can handle it," he said.

Mann said the city faces a unique challenge created by the coalescence of aging infrastructure and increasingly volatile weather events as a result of climate change.

The most immediate solution, Mann said, is to untangle how the city and the county oversee the Metropolitan Sewer District.

"We have spent a lot of money to go a long way towards separating stormwater and sanitary sewage," Mann said. "That's not the only thing we're talking about. We're talking about the capacity of the system when there's a big rainstorm. And as big rainstorms occur more often, we don't have any choice."

Mann's motion calls on the city administration to develop a plan or report to address the issue, but the timeline for that plan remained unclear Monday.

Meanwhile, as City Council considers the best path forward, business and property owners like Bastos and Robinson are left waiting.

"At some point, someone has to do something, and we have to step things up," Bastos said. "There's a point where businesses can't continue to operate. It's just not worth it."

CINCINNATI — When heavy rain starts, so does anxiety.

Just ask Hyde Park resident Adam Bankovich.

"We went in our basement and, sure enough, the storm drain had exploded, hitting the ceiling, which is about 9 feet ceiling down there, and then it just kept bubbling up. Shop vac was full," he told WCPO Thursday.

Bankovich said it's not the first time rainwater and sewage have overflowed into his home. Last year, it flooded three times and once before that in 2016.

"It's super frustrating," he said. "The claims process is just hours, weeks, months of our time that we can't get back."

According to the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati, the agency received more than 400 reports of "possible sewer backs" in the last 24 hours since Wednesday night's torrential rains.

Nine of those were on Astoria Avenue, an area with a history of flooding.

MSD had already installed sewer-backup prevention at two homes on that block, with eight more — including the Bankovich's — still in line.

But he said he's been waiting for more than a year.

"It's frustrating; it's maddening," he said. "Everyone is doing their best, and we're just living through it, but every single time it happens it's invasive to our home and our comfort to our home."

A few blocks over, resident Nick McKee said the feeling is mutual.

"The anxiety we feel from the second there is rain that is absurdly heavy is there constantly, and then it's a mad dash to get as many things up out of the basement as we can," he said.

McKee said his sewer drain has backed up into his yard, rising about two feet, and his basement and garage are also flooded.

He said he wants a permanent fix.

"What they have with respect to the claims system is a Band-Aid instead of a real solution," he said. "And if you pay the claims, it may be cheaper than the billions of dollars it costs to fix it.

"But maybe the billions of dollars it costs to fix it is what they need to do."