Several drainage improvement projects are underway in Weslaco.

One project is now starting to wrap up and a second is getting ready to begin about a mile away in an area prone to flooding.

The Cleckler-Heald Drainage Project is being built to put a stop to flooding in the neighborhood. The 11-acre detention pond between B. Garza Middle School and Cleckler-Heald Elementary School will store stormwater runoff.

The detention pond will prevent stormwaters from flooding downstream into the Paisano community.

Eric Fonseca is one of the neighbors who live right behind the drainage project. He says that part of town floods every time there's heavy rain.

"We basically get trapped in here in our street because everything around gets flooded,

including Delma Street to the Frontage Road to Sugarcane Road also," Fonseca said.

Fonseca says he's glad the city is taking action to avoid flooding. City leaders say the project is about 95 percent complete.

In about a month, construction will soon begin on a second drainage project, known as the Border at Tahoe project. It will be built on Border Road between Mile 10 and Mile 9.

"Certain communities, the Cotton Estates Phase Two Subdivision and also the West Lake Village subdivisions, they're all located on Border Road, those were experiencing drainage issues, and we did have a drainage system that was there, but unfortunately it was undersized under capacity," Weslaco City Engineer Albert Aldana said.

The city engineer says after any flooding event, they have to close down the road.

This project will replace the old pipe used for drainage with a bigger one. The estimated cost for the Border at Tahoe project is about $500,000. It will be paid with federal funding from the American Rescue Plan.

The city is currently waiting for parts before they start construction.