LEE COUNTY, S.C. — Residents in Lee County say they've been facing continuous flooding issues when it rains. Now, the City of Bishopville, and the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) have teamed up with the county to fix it.
"All of us were getting complaints about various stormwater-related issues," said Lee County Administrator Alan Watkins.
The county says they've gotten over 75 complaints of flooding at various locations.
"Really, what brought this about was the flooding of (20)15 and hurricanes in 16, 17, and 18," Watkins said. "The amount of water and amount of issues were continuing to come up. You have vegetation that has grown into outfall areas, litter that gets into points and clogs up areas."
Currently, the most significant project is digging and clearing ditches on or around Roland Street.
The goal is to create a way for excess water to flow toward creeks.
"That's one thing with the vegetation we're cleaning out that exposes the ditch to where you can then clean the ditch out," Watkins said. "It's really creating the access to the ditch and then we will come behind what's being done with the mowing and actually clean out the bottom of the ditches to actually get the flow we want."
While it's work that will continue to go on and is helping solve the problem, it won't fix everything.
"What we want to do is when you have a flash flood situation, if you disperse that water more quickly, the length of the impact is shorted," Watkins said. "It all will positive impact but doesn't mean you'd never have water standing in the road."