As you’re well aware, it rained a lot in Sanford on Thursday.
Portions of Lee County received up to six inches of rain, which caused flash flooding in several areas throughout the day. The City of Sanford, in an emergency response report released today, said the Sanford Fire Department responded to 25 calls on Thursday for downed trees, fire alarms and several other flood-related incidents. City emergency personnel remained active throughout the night and into the morning clearing roads and attending to damage in some city buildings, including the Buggy Building downtown, which closed during the storm due to lower-level flooding (and remained closed on Friday and through the weekend).
According to the city, firefighters answered at least three calls Thursday helping people safely exit their homes or businesses. One water rescue was performed for a person trapped in their vehicle between McIver and Jenkins streets in downtown Sanford. The city reported roughly a dozen streets were closed temporarily, but all were cleared and reopened by the end of the day.
“I’m incredibly proud of how our crew responded to such a challenging day,” said Sanford Fire Chief Matt Arnold. “They worked through difficult conditions, pushing through missed meals and standing in floodwater, to ensure our community stayed safe. This is exactly what they train for, and it was an honor to watch them in action.”
Arnold also thanked Sanford Police Department, Public Works and TriRiverWater crews for their support in closing roads and assisting residents; and the swift water rescue teams from Cypress Pointe and North Chatham Fire Departments, Pocket Fire Department and Lee County Emergency Management.The city and county governments will provide updates on the status of the Buggy Building prior to Monday. Residents are also encouraged to sign up for city alerts to stay informed during future emergencies: sanfordnc.net/Alerts-Notifications.
My surface water math might be rusty. I seem to recall about 1,000 acres in the Little Buffalo Creek Watershed upstream of Weatherspoon Street. Big Buffalo had about 4,500 acres upstream of Spring Lane. If you put six inches of rain down on those footprints that’s 163 million gallons trying to get under Weatherspoon Street and 733 million gallons trying to get under Spring Lane. Put another way it’s like the 24 and 110 days worth of flow through the Sewer Plant. That is a stupendous amount of water. The shape of Little Buffalo Creek keeps it hidden from Jonesboro until it crosses Rose Street and pops out Yarboroughs. NC DOT should have lifted Spring Lane at least three feet higher years ago. Little Buffalo only has two potential catch basins, the area behind Old City Hall to the Weatherspoon Street, and the old Manufacturing facility on Rose Street, but you would have to dig it out to create a retention pond.
Out of sight, out of mind. We are more focused on building a farmers market and taking over all the failing water systems in Chatham county.
You can only do so much regarding what will likely be a 100-150 year rain event. The flood ways are clearly indicated on the FEMA maps. Topo maps are available online. The City can’t unilaterally raise Spring Lane and most engineered storm systems are based on only a 10-year event. A 100-year flood means a probability 1% happening in any year, a 10 year event means on average it happens 10 times in 100 years.
The City of Sanford should be sued. Other municipalities have required developers to allocate spaces for rain run-off. Sanford has done nothing. Two HOA’s in the State of NC have successively sued and won because they were able to prove their cities did not have enough catch basins and did not provide enough erosion control.
This problem is only going to get worse as Sanford grows and becomes more densely populated. The sewers in West Landing had mud flowing into them and raw sewage coming out into resident’s yards. I have seen this happen 6 times. There are no containment ponds in our neighborhood. There is no riprap in the creeks for soil containment. We have several city leaders in this neighborhood that turn a blind eye to this problem.
Having attended a planning board meeting, I recall seeing storm water ponds discussed, required and displayed in the current plans. As you build, you take away surfaces that absorb water and replace them with roofs and parking and walks and that accelerates the water that needs to be absorbed. It is the older neighborhoods that were built before such requirements that have to absorb the result.
Storm water retention is usually engineered for a 10 year flood event, not 50 or a 100. 6 inches of rain in a few hours creates a stupendous flow of water and from Tramway to Spring Lane you have to cross under US 1, Keller Andrews Road, Wicker Street, US 1 again, Carbonton Road, and then Spring Lane – all State of NC Roads that the City doesn’t control
Planning and zoning are supposed to do impact studies to determine the possibility of flooding. Existing neighborhoods are to be taken into consideration when planning new developments that are planned near them. This is nothing new, Wake, Mecklenburg and Durham Counties have done this for 30 years. They have had storm runoff systems since the 1960’s.
The NCDOT can be held accountable because they have channeled runoff from US #1 into small creeks that cannot contain the water within their banks. It will be interesting to see if they fix any of this in the Tramway area when they complete US #1 improvements.
Watershed maps have existed much longer. Lee County Soil and Water is a good resource.