Alljoy residents cope with wastewater flooding following Tropical Storm Debby

In Beaufort County’s Alljoy neighborhood, some yards looked more like ponds Tuesday as residents grappled with the rising waters from Tropical Storm Debby

The slow-moving storm dumped nearly 10 inches of rain on the community located just outside of Bluffton. Sitting southwest of the Tanger Outlet stores and east of Myrtle Island and Buck Point, this area is regularly inundated with overflowing storm drains and septic tanks whenever rain blankets the community.

Harvey Bethea has lived in Alljoy since he was 3 years old and the community’s drainage issues have only gotten worse since he was young. From the front of his home on Alljoy Road, the area looked more like a retention pond than a front yard Tuesday evening during a mid-afternoon lull in Debby’s two-day long deluge.

“I’ve never seen it this far,” he said. “It’ll come about halfway up the yard. But I’ve never had it like this, the whole yard. This is the worst it’s ever been.”

Most of the people talked to Tuesday said they don’t use their toilets when the area gets heavy rain because they know their septic tanks are over-saturated. Many admit they drive to the nearby Lowe’s to use their facilities.

But, despite their good humor, the septic tanks in Alljoy give residents great concern. When the septic tanks over-saturate, wastewater often joins the groundwater in their yards and that creates a major health concern.

Herman Kramer, who lives off Oyster St., has a drainage ditch that runs through his backyard. The water that flows through often has a stench to it. It’s something he says he smells nearly every day. “The aroma is the same that you would get passing the sewage treatment plant,” he said.

Monday night when the rain was at its heaviest, Kramer’s whole backyard was covered in the water. He has a permanent array of sandbags and other deterrents keeping the water from reaching his garage. This permanent fixture is in place because of how often it is that his backyard fills up.

Is there a solution?

Homeowners in Alljoy all agree that if better care was taken of their drainage ditches, then more water would be kept out of their yards.

“I realized that it’s not their job to drain my yard, I take that, but if their ditches work the way they were supposed to, I wouldn’t have a problem,” said Bethea.

But various government agencies can’t agree on where responsibility resides for keeping the ditches and swales clean and flowing.

Some roads are owned by the state and are the responsibility of the South Carolina Department of Transportation, while the others are owned by Beaufort County. One road could be state-owned and the next road over, county-owned, which can leave a lot of head scratching for who’s responsible for which roads.

“It’s been selective,” said homeowner John Trimmer. “I don’t know who makes the decision on which ditches need to be done, but I know that there’s a couple of legacy streets up there that are always clean.”

Trimmer told a story of seeing county employees clearing a ditch when he pointed them to another that would benefit from a cleaning. The workers responded saying “We ain’t touching this. We’re county and this is state,” Trimmer said.

In the 30-plus years Trimmer’s lived in Alljoy he’s seen his own ditches cleared maybe five times, he added.

Lamar Hattaway and his wife bought a home off Alljoy Road in 2017. They don’t face flooding in their yard or home, but the road next to their house often becomes a huge puddle of water when it rains. Then “lookie-loos,” drivers who take to the area to assess the flooding, drive through at higher speeds than needed and shove the water into their yard anyways.

However, on Tuesday the puddle wasn’t so bad and the ditches by the road were draining. Giving credence to his neighbor’s claims, Hattaway attributes the improvement to SC DOT clearing the ditches earlier this year.

“They have come in and they have cleared a lot of ditches,” he said. “Last year, this time, it would take days before it would get down to this level.”

Because of the noticeable improvement, Hattaway was drafting a thank you email to those that came to help

This story was originally published August 7, 2024 at 8:37 AM.

Sebastian Lee

The Island Packet

Sebastian Lee covers Beaufort County for The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette. He graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2022. If he’s not working he’s most likely watching a good movie or spinning a record.