Clinton residents Lillie Lamb and Karen Smith Jackson came to Clinton’s City Council meeting Tuesday night seeking help with flooding they say they have experienced at their homes due to rainstorms. Lamb and Jackson both live on Weeks Street, and each told the council members they have been forced to deal with this issue for multiple years.
“Every time it rains, it pours into our yards…my concern is, when is it gonna happen?” Lamb asked in her address to the Council at its June 2 meeting.
“When is this gonna happen as far as the drain and the pipe you’re talking about…when is it gonna happen, because we’ve been dealing with it for over 15 years,” Lamb attested.
Jackson, in her time at the podium, said she had talked with Mayor Pro Tem Marcus Becton and the city manage (J.P. Duncan), but no one had been able to offer a solution. “I know there are other things you might deem more important than this, but this is important … you can’t get home if you’re not home, and if you are home, you can’t leave,” she stressed.
Jackson told council members the water was obtrusive at times.
“The water comes up so high that it comes from the road across my yard and you can’t see any grass,” she attested. “It comes halfway across my carport. I have a double carport, so one side of it is under water … I’ve had to have the duct work in my house replaced twice. I’ve had floors that have needed repairing. I’ve had to have thousands of dollars worth of floors and stuff like that redone, and it’s all because of this water.”
And the stress, Jackson said, had been bad.
“It’s the anxiety of wondering how high is the water going to get. I’ve had water up to my second doorstep under my carport, (and I’ve been) wondering if it’s going to get high enough to get in my house when it’s going through the vents in my foundation. Hurricane season has started now, and you can imagine how high the water is when there’s a hurricane. We need some help.”
There was a lot of talk and possible solutions batted around by the council, with many of them noting that even if bigger pipes were to be installed with bigger storm boxes, the pipes and storm boxes would still eventually fill and overflow. The water, they said, would all still need to drain somewhere, ideally in a way that could be controlled.
To fix the problem immediately, the idea of a retention pond was floated out.
“I’m just talking out loud,” Starling interjected, “but one thing we could do is we could condemn behind Southern Style and put in a retention pond.” That would give storage to get the water out and get it going. Ultimately, the water in the retention pond would still need a place to go.
“We’ll stay right on it,” Starling told Lamb and Jackson.