A Flood of Concern

Flooded homeowner after flooded homeowner went before City Council last week to ask for help fighting the continuously rising water in their Bridgepointe neighborhood.
Council met last week at Grace on the Ashley Baptist Church on Bees Ferry Road. The special meeting was scheduled months before Hurricane Matthew appeared on any weatherman’s radar, but the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
Neighborhood association president Bob Lew, a retired chemical engineer, took to the microphone and told how his home welcomed more than 30 inches of water last year during the “1,000-year-rain” of Hurricane Joaquin.
And how it took on more than 15 inches of water during Matthew. Far from a 15-inch improvement, Lew said it was an ongoing problem for him and his neighbors on the western side of Bees Ferry, in and around Shadowmoss.
Neighbor after neighbor followed Lew, accusing the city of not doing enough to stop the inundations that regularly visit their streets, yards, garages, and living rooms.
They blamed overdevelopment gobbling up too much of the nearby wetlands. They blamed the widening of Bees Ferry and the removal of what they called its storm drains. They pointed fingers at staffers who had done nothing to fix creeks the city has an easement to, despite promises to look into those problems
“These are good, solid folks,” said City Councilman Dean Reigel, whose district includes the soggy houses. A community of 32 older homes that probably wouldn’t be allowed to be built in today’s zoning climate, Reigel said the city has to contribute to solving his constituents’ problems.
“This is an embarrassment that the ‘Number 1’ city in this great country has a neighborhood like Bridgepointe living like it’s in the Third World,” said Reigel later in the week.
Reigel said after the meeting that the city needs a “second opinion” on how to handle the “sick” situation. “My attitude is that we need to find the best civil engineering group or organization in the country that specializes in hydrology, and even look at what they are doing in the Netherlands, and in Amsterdam, to solve issues like this.”
Mayor John Tecklenburg, pained while listening to the suffering of his citizens, has heard the call for action and, instead of finding excuses, is looking for solutions. His spokesperson, Jack O’Toole said staffers are already compiling lists of possible experts to combat the situation.
Tecklenburg may have his hands tied somewhat, since the city isn’t the only level of government involved in the flooding. The Bees Ferry expansion was a county project. Wetlands mitigation is a state and federal issue. Rising waters globally is threatening all coastal cities.
And the city is limited on what it can do for waterforms it has an easement to, as an easement only grants the city access to the waterway. That means the creek that keeps flooding the golf club at Shadowmoss is on private property and the city is not necessarily required to maintain it.
Previous administrations have made it tougher on City Hall, having issued thousands of housing permits in “outer West Ashley” in years past.
“I’m not anti-development, but I’m very adamant about ‘smart growth,’” said Reigel, adding that the city needs to be especially focused on managing outflow of water from pending developments.
Reigel is worried that huge projects like the 6,000-roof first phase of the nearby Long Savannah development could make the situation even worse. He said how the city goes forward could affect the coming debate over extending Glenn McConnell Extension up to I-26.
“My perspective is that those (design) guidelines need to be stricter here than anywhere else because we are ‘Charleston,’ and anything short of that is unacceptable,” said the councilman.
Congressman Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) attended the meeting and offered his pledge to seek more federal money to help out – quite a reversal from his staunch anti-Washington aid when he was governor.
Tecklenburg had the unenviable task of announcing at the meeting that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had just denied a previous grant application that would buy the 32 homes in Bridgepointe.
Reigel said the average home there costs close to $200,000, and expected the federal buyout to cover 60-percent of the fair market value, with the city covering the rest.
“I just hope Mark can get all the federal legislators from South Carolina to get off their butts and help out,” said Reigel. “What the city needs to do is have a plan and money set aside.”