MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – Horry County leaders promised to fix drainage problems in Cameron Village, but the neighborhood still hasn’t seen any changes after a year of people begging for solutions.
We talked with Roco Turso after the October flood of 2015.
“I’m not an engineer, but common since will tell you that Cameron Village doesn’t have the adequate drainage capacity within the community,” said Turso.
After every big rain, the community sees flooding problems, and that’s why Peter Brotherton and other community members have been begging county leaders for help.
“We really felt as though there would be something presented to us, something that we could take back to our community and say hey, this is what the plan is, this is what our surveys found, this is what the studies found,” said Brotherton.
This week, Brotherton says they were supposed to get a response from the county on how they plan to fix the drainage problem, but that didn’t happen.
“Matthew just threw a monkey wrench into it. We felt like we would at least another month along to a solution until Matthew came, and then it was trying to patch, you know, the holes,” said County Council member Johnny Vaught.
The water was back in the neighborhood during Hurricane Matthew, but Vaught says it wasn’t as bad thanks to pumps they put in ahead of the storm. It was a short-term solution, and people who live there say more needs to be done.
“It got the water out within 24 hours, so it helped, but that’s not a long-term solution. We’ve got to fix the drainage solution. The drainage does not have the capacity to get the water out of the neighborhood. So, we’ve got to fix that,” said Vaught.
Vaught promised the people of Cameron Village they would be on the agenda every month for the I&R meeting until they come up with a solution.
Vaught says they’re planning to have engineers meet with county leaders within the next thirty days to hear suggestions for long-term solutions.