Business owners: Drainage issues damaging property, causing accidents off Wilkinson Blvd
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Business owners on a stretch of Wilkinson Boulevard in Charlotte are dealing with what’s become a years-long problem.
When there’s heavy rain, flooding stretches from one side of the street to the other. This is happening on the stretch of the road near Sam Wilson Road. Property owners in the area say it’s destroying their land and causing accidents.
With how much rain the area has had in the past couple of weeks, the problem has gotten worse.
“Oh, it floods every time,” said Scott Milford, who owns Mulch Life off Wilkinson Boulevard.
Milford is used to water running through his property. Any time it rains, his lot turns into a lake.
“It’s every bit of 18 to 20 inches,” he said, describing how deep the water gets.
The flooding leaves behind divots in the parking lot and washes away his land little by little.
“We’ve put large pieces of concrete in to slow the erosion down,” he said.
The fix isn’t cheap.
“It’s about $900 a dump truck load, so we do anywhere from three to six dump truck loads every time it floods it out,” said Milford.
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Milford hasn’t seen it this bad before. After Thursday’s storms, water covered Wilkinson from one side to the other. Officers had to come out and direct traffic, and it took about two hours to dry up.
More than the inconvenience, Milford t is worried someone is going to get seriously hurt. He’s seen several crashes.
“That telephone pole has been replaced twice,” he said. “One, two, three, four, five times now. Five times on the fence.”
Unfortunately for Milford, there isn’t any timeline for when crews will fix the problem.
A spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Transportation said maintenance engineers are aware of the drainage issue and are planning to contract crews to make improvements to help water flow and drain properly. The problem is that some utilities have to be relocated before that can happen, and that work isn’t scheduled yet.
Milford worries that by the time that happens, it’ll be too late.
“We’re going to probably have a fatality situation,” he said. “We’ve gotten lucky so far. It’s just been injuries and property damage.”
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