CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – The city is trying to prevent neighborhoods from flooding by buying undeveloped land before homes are built there.

More than six feet of water from the Waccamaw River flooded a neighborhood near Pitch Landing after Hurricane Florence.

Less than a half-mile upstream, the city is buying land, which absorbed some of that water.

“It’s part of a larger scheme that we’ve been working on for a number of years, trying to put together a series of conservation tracts to really be able to increase the amount of flood capacity that we have,” said city administrator Adam Emrick.

The city, with help from the Open Space Institute and the Winyah Rivers Alliance, purchased 152 acres of mostly wetland for $280,000 earlier this month.

“I think that’s a pretty good bargain,” Emrick said.

The land is called the Westmoreland Preserve. It’s off of Waccamaw Drive, near U.S. Highway 501, south of Lake Busbee and the Waccamaw River.

It also neighbors the Cox Ferry Lake Recreation Area, which is next to the Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge.

“The idea is to have a more connected corridor of conserved lands that can be protected,” said Cara Schildtknecht, who’s the Waccamaw Riverkeeper.

The Open Space Institute estimates flooding caused about $4.2 million in damage in the city since 2015.

Schildtknecht says it’s easier to prevent development than fix the damage.

“The more land that isn’t developed that can take that water is really important,” she said.

Conway says it has about 1,400 acres of protected land in city limits.

Emrick says this purchase, along with FEMA buyouts, fit into the flood prevention plan.

“We can’t do those big infrastructure projects like moving roads, elevating bridges and things like that,” he said. “That’s just too costly. It’s overwhelming for a city our size, but what we can do is put into protection property that should not be developed.”

Emrick also says Westmoreland Preserve could have recreation options, including what he calls “a dream” of walking and biking paths connecting downtown Conway and Coastal Carolina University.