Beaufort has a $28 million flooding problem. Now it needs to find the money to fix it
It will cost more than $28 million to fix flooding problems plaguing homes and businesses across 200 acres in downtown Beaufort, a study has found.
In recent years, king tides, large rains and hurricanes — including Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Irma in 2017 — have increasingly overwhelmed the city’s aging drainage system, putting streets under water and damaging buildings.
“This is a huge quality of life issue for the entire downtown area,” said Neal Pugliese, a city consultant who is heading up the work.
The storm water project is the next in line for the city, which completed the $6.5 million Mossy Oaks storm water project last year, alleviating repeated flooding in the 580-acre Battery Creek drainage basin.
For the latest work, the city hired design and engineering firm Davis and Floyd, Inc. to do a drainage study of an area bounded on the west by Harrington Street, Boundary Street on the north, Waterfront Park on the South and The Point area on the east. It includes most of the downtown area.
The study recommends 28 projects — with a price tag of $28.3 million — to alleviate the chronic flooding.
The city already is applying for state and federal grants to cover the $18 million it will cost to fix the two highest-priority drainage problems in the area, Pugliese said.
“We can’t take care of the $28 million in one fell swoop,” Pugliese said, “but we can sure get a jump on it with the grants.”
Past success in getting grants for major work, including the Boundary Street reconstruction and Mossy Oaks storm drain project, and getting those jobs done on time and within budget, has Pugliese hopeful the city will receive the $18 million grant funds.
“We have a track record,” Pugliese said.
It’s likely the city will need to use existing local storm water funds to complete all of the $28 million in projects but how much isn’t clear at this time, Pugliese said. The city also has set aside $4 million in federal COVID-19 aid for storm water work.
The highest priority is King Street, where water gathers because it is in a depression, Pugliese said. Four projects totaling $10 million alone are scheduled for the King Street area that involve installing right-sized pipes at the correct elevation and a pumping apparatus that evacuates water rapidly.
“We’re confident,” Pugliese said, “we can design and address that problem.”
A 2020 study of the city’s vulnerability to flooding, conducted by the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium in Charleston, the Lowcountry Hazards Center at the College of Charleston and University of South Carolina, said tidal and rainfall flooding problems are expected to increase as population growth leads to more hard surfaces and greater runoff.
Climate change is causing more frequent and intense rainfall and sea level rise, which also is exacerbating the flooding problems for the coastal plain city with an average elevation of 10 feet above sea level.
The area with the most structures vulnerable to flooding, that study said, was The Point and downtown area.
Work is expected to begin in 18 months and will take three years.
Design and permitting alone will take 10 months.
“Years ago people did engineering looking through the prism of a singular property, Pugliese said. “We’re doing engineering looking at it as an area approach. What impact does a project in one area have on the broader community? Because the water has to go somewhere.”
This story was originally published August 20, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
