Augusta residents are hopeful for stormwater improvements
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - When it rains, it floods, and that is the reality for some local residents.
Three million dollars in new federal money is coming in to help. We looked at the progress of getting the stormwater situation under control.
In certain parts of National Hills, anytime there’s steady rain, there’s a risk of flood. Some floods were so bad neighbors say the manholes came out of the ground.
“It’s a stream, I mean it’s pouring, and sometimes when I look back there, I think ‘did I buy a house on the lake,” said Cathy Smith.
Smith has lived in National Hills for more than 30 years. All in all, she loves the neighborhood, except when it rains.
“Over the years that I’ve lived here, we’ve had a car that has flooded. Our backyard has had standing water up to my knees, sometimes up to my waist, and we’ve had to open up the gates and let the water out of the backyard,” she said.
Years of flooding caused by small pipes, and a drainage system that doesn’t work anymore.
“I love the house. If I could pick it up and move it somewhere else, I would be happy,” said Smith.
Other parts of the county need help, too.
Louis Johnson, Ellis Street resident said: “When it rains heavily, it backs up, overpours through the whole neighborhood, and living at the end of the road, everything ends in my yard.”
Johnson lives under the Calhoun Expressway. When it rains, run-off from the bridge doesn’t hold in the city-built gutter behind her house.
“When it’s full of trees, limbs, and trash, the water has no other place but to come out onto your property,” said Johnson.
The engineering department director says many stormwater systems in Augusta are old and in need of significant repair. But money is the biggest hurdle, in the past, stormwater funding wasn’t a priority.
“It shouldn’t take 15 years,” said Johnson.
The commission created a stormwater fee in 2016. Engineering says they’re just now able to use that fee and get crews on the ground.
Augusta Engineering says the new funding will help kick off the National Hills project next year. They’re still looking for funding to address Ellis Street issues and are working on a project right now in east Augusta.
“It’s just a lot of problems for the neighborhood, and it seems that we can’t get anything done,” she said.
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