Roanoke Rapids City Council Tuesday drafted an agreement between the city and Halifax County for a flooding abatement project on Chockoyotte Creek.
The issue has created significant drainage problems in and around the Southgate Drive community.
The North Carolina General Assembly awarded a $1 million grant to the county. The grant is administered through the state Department of Public Safety.
Halifax County commissioners at their meeting Monday approved the grant project ordinance.
Public Works Director Larry Chalker said the project was already identified based on a complaint from a citizen who lives on Charles Circle off Southgate Drive.
“There are approximately 15 parcels with homes that are affected by this project,” Chalker said. “There’s a very severe drainage situation where water is not running as it was originally designed to run behind these homes.”
He said the person who called public works was seeing erosion on three sides of her home. “That brought our attention to it. We were not aware at the time we had a drainage easement there,” Chalker said.
He said once the problem was identified the department began looking at ways to better provide the residents protection from the massive amount of water running behind their homes during thunderstorms and heavy rains. “This grant came along at just the right time.”
Chalker said the project is currently in its infancy. The city has had a group of engineers from Mack Gay Associates look at the issue. He described the Rocky Mount firm as being adept at addressing storm drainage projects.
The scope of the project is to better control the stormwater run-off behind the affected residences.
There’s also a large power transformer with a power source underground which ends up under water during heavy rains. “There’s several things we aim to correct there,” Chalker said.
There is much work which will have to be done at the Charles Circle cul-de-sac. “That cul-de-sac over time has settled. The driveways were not maintained properly. The aprons were not at the right elevation so we’re pretty much setting up to rebuild that entire cul-de-sac and get it back on the proper grade and get the water running the way it’s supposed to be.”
Chalker said the department anticipates installing more water drainage points.
In addition to the issues at Charles Circle, Chalker said on Southgate Drive there’s erosion along the edge of the asphalt. “If you drive through you'll see where the asphalt is starting to flake off.”
Part of that is due to erosion from heavy storms and another factor is from improper parking. “We intend to pipe a portion of that ditch in and improve the surface of the roadway,” he said. “And as we move through the project we hope to give them a little better options where to park their cars.”
The public works director said a big portion of the grant funds will be spent on pipes and asphalt but he also said that the entire $1 million is not expected to be spent. “We certainly don’t foresee any overruns at this point.”
The first phase of the project will be surveying, Chalker said.
Besides the Chockoyotte Creek project the state awarded flooding abatement grants to the town of Scotland Neck and the town of Littleton. Both of those grants were for $250,000.
