KERSHAW COUNTY, S.C. — Residents of the Pecan Orchard neighborhood in Kershaw County have been grappling with severe drainage issues, leading to frequent flooding in the area.
“We’ve had flooding since we moved in; it’s just gotten progressively worse,” said Corlyn Buring, a resident of Pecan Orchard since 2018.
Buring has witnessed her street transform from a dirt road into a rushing river multiple times a year.
“Part of the roads washed out, and that's actually not that bad. We’ve had it before where it washes out and we can't get out that way,” Buring explained.
Buring and nearly 55 of her neighbors recently gathered to voice their concerns to county leaders, hoping for a resolution to the ongoing issues.
“We’ve complained, neighbors have complained, and not much has been done,” Buring said, expressing the community’s frustration with the lack of progress.
Kershaw County Councilman Russell Brazell acknowledged the severity of the situation. “The entire community is impacted by the watershed issues here, and it’s a definite problem,” he said.
County Administrator Danny Templar assured residents that efforts are underway to address the flooding. “We want to understand through surveys, engineering, topography, and the most efficient way to get this water collected from our roads into the ditches and to the point where it terminates and is of little or no impact,” Templar stated.
Templar added, "I expect to see possible utilities being moved, the roads being reset and when I say reset I mean set back to what the county standard is, ditching that follows alongside those roads so that water can shed from those roads. There will be some piping installed,".
For residents like Buring, the hope is that these plans will finally bring relief from the persistent flooding, "We've been going at it since the end of July getting things together, I think we were just fed up with it, it's a process, just trying to be optimistic,” Buring remarked.
Councilman Brazell expects to have a plan of action within the next three months.
Once finalized, the plan will be presented to the County Council for approval, including the necessary spending package to hire a contractor.