ROCK HILL, S.C. — Neighbors say flooding in one Rock Hill neighborhood has been a problem for 60 years, and some of them thought it had been resolved.
That was until Tuesday’s storms left them underwater.
They live in the College Downs area at the intersection of King Drive and Doby Drive.
In April 2022, the city announced it was spending millions of dollars to enhance safety and prevent flooding in College Downs. So naturally, some homeowners were shocked Tuesday to see waters rise out of a creek back there and flood streets and some homes.
Neighbors sent video to Channel 9′s Tina Terry that shows floodwater covering King Drive. You can hear neighbors talking about the problem.
“It’s been flooding down here since 1969,” homeowner Moses Samuel said.
As part of the City of Rock Hill’s $2 million project, they lowered some of the land, turning it into greenspace. The idea was to give floodwaters a place to go.
They also built a roundabout to give people a new and safe pathway out of the neighborhood.
“The only way they could get out then was a little throughfare between two houses,” Councilman Perry Sutton said. “That was the only way they could get out. The roundabout has alleviated that problem.”
Sutton said the improvements helped, but he said the only way to decrease flooding there is to dredge the nearby creek. He said the city would first have to study the impact of doing something like that.
“We can’t come in here and just dredge this, because what’s going to happen south of here? We’ll flood Chester,” he said.
If a study warrants moving forward, Sutton said they’d need approval from various government agencies for the project, which could cost up to $60 million. Moses Samuel said it’s something that should have been done years ago.
“It makes a lot of sense to me,” Samuel said. “If you dug out that hole and if they didn’t do nothing else, pipe it out at least ‘til pass the park -- you would never have that flooding.”
Two homes were flooded during Tuesday’s storm. City leaders said they had offered to put those families into new homes months ago to get them out of the flood plain, but they declined the offer. Those families did not want to talk to Tina Terry on camera on Thursday.
(WATCH BELOW: Trees, power lines fall across South Carolina)
©2024 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/LH3JSJEF3VBLRJLJQESEAG34AM.png)
