Had It Up To Here!

Dawn Balsam has had it up to here.
Here being, metaphorically, about as high as her eyebrow: physically, a little above her ankle.
For the past nine months, Balsam has fought City Hall … and Charleston County … and the State of South Carolina — all over a few inches of water.
Considering the millions of dollars that have been spent on the peninsula fixing flooding and drainage problems. It makes no sense to Balsam that her stretch of Savannah Highway is inundated with water every time it rains for even a half-hour.
Yards flood, the sidewalk across the street from Blessed Sacrament is locatable only by radar, neighbors are forced to drive to and from nearby restaurants and bars because the sidewalks have become ankle-turning treacherous.
Sarah Braswell lives a few doors down. For 10 years, she never complained, mixing equal amounts of apathy and rain boots. “I figured whoever was responsible wouldn’t want to spend the money to fix it.”
Braswell may be more right than she imagines.
Balsam has tried to affix blame with no luck whatsoever. City Hall has said it’s a county and state Department of Transportation problem. The county says it’s the bailiwick of the city. And the state says the right-of-way lies within the city, especially when it comes to the sidewalk.
City spokesperson Barbara Vaughn spoke with the head of the municipal public service office, Laura Cabiness, on Friday. Cabiness is the director/city engineer for the Department of Public Service, and will walk and crawl any length of rain sewer to fix a problem, usually in heels.
Vaughn said, based on her conversation with Cabiness, that the SCDOT has the right of way in their purview, and that the issues are part of the state’s “central highway” system along Hwy. 17.
Vaughn stressed that the city knows about the problem, and is working with the other governmental entities to find a solution.
Roger Bowers, the DOT’s resident maintenance engineer out of the North Charleston office, located, appropriately, on Maintenance Way, said he would check on it, but that he was pretty sure the problems were “the city’s and the county’s responsibility.”
County spokesperson Shawn Smetana confirmed that public works staffers responded to one of Balsam’s queries in September. And they found that it was a City of Charleston/SCDOT issue.
“If I could get anybody responsible who could come up with a plan to address the drainage and flooding issue to take a serious walk with me to look at the problem, I would … I’d … I’d,” says Balsam, as her words stammer to a halt.
Balsam knows it won’t be an easy answer. The yards on her side of the street are, for big stretches between the fire station and the first entrance to Byrnes Down, seriously below grade, as compared to the street.
Drainage has become complicated, according to Balsam, who has walked the street looking for culprits. Some of the street drains are too high to let water in, and the one big drain that is installed correctly, in her view, is often blocked, she says.
Balsam says drain blockage can come in many forms: leaves, fallen branches during a storm, or unwanted circulars left in yards by Post & Courier delivery drivers, that float down and help dam up the grate.
One of the city’s responses, according to Balsam, was to send out threatening letters to nearby residents. One letter arrived on a Friday at her 82-year-old neighbor’s house, and put a bit of a scare into her.
Not surprising, since the letter included possible weighty fines and potential incarceration in the small print. The letter came too late for anyone at the city to answer a phone call. So, on the following Monday, when Balsam called on behalf of her frightened neighbor, an official said not to worry, that the letter was merely a “friendly” reminder.
Too late.
The neighbor already had her older brother, in his late ’80s, drive in from James Island to sweep her yard.
Balsam said her next best hope that is when SCDOT begins work on improving the Avondale Point intersection, where pedestrians keep getting hit as they walk between bars, someone will look a few short blocks down the street, and think, “Hmmm, that’s a problem that needs fixing.”