Fayetteville city leaders to address flooding with long-awaited prevention projects
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (WTVD) -- The city of Fayetteville is moving forward with long-awaited projects addressing flooding issues in the city at Monday's city council meeting.
Deven Brewington of Fayetteville says the flooding on his street, Sunbury Drive, has been affecting him and his neighbors for about 15 years.
"I just want to get it fixed because my grandson here, when he drives his truck...he can't get on the road, or you can't get an emergency vehicle down here."
The city of Fayetteville says those repairs for Sunbury Drive are advancing at Monday's city council meeting. Sunbury is just one of four projects beginning construction while dozens of others are in the design and planning phases.
"Sunbury Drive, like most of our projects, involves an increase in increase in the size of the existing infrastructure basically enabling the infrastructure to carry off the floodwaters that accumulate right now to carry them off and not to create flooding," said Jim Talian, the capital projects program manager of the city of Fayetteville.
Talian says these efforts are just the start of hundreds of studies on watersheds in Fayetteville to address flooding throughout the city. The site of another major flood improvement project Fayetteville city council is reviewing during Monday's meeting, replacing bridges here at Person Street and Russell Street in downtown Fayetteville.
City officials say they've been flooded by major storms as recently as Tropical Storm Debby.
It's now the city's biggest flood improvement project costing about $20 million in total.
"The whole goal of this project basically is to open up the areas under the bridges so the bridges don't constrain the flow so much and cause a backup," said Talian.
The city council is slated to review a contract that would move it to the next stage of design and construction in Monday's meeting.
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