Residents along river still dealing with flood concerns

All eyes have been on the South Fork River in Lincoln County on Friday.

Reporter Ken Lemon was with state Sen. Ted Alexander, R-District 44, who checked out the damage in Lincoln County caused by storms earlier this week.

Residents remained concerned.

“I’m always worried about the water that they get in the mountains and it coming downstream,” said resident Jonathan Baines, who lives along Riverside Drive in Cramerton.

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The river surrounded part of his home earlier this week and 12 inches of water filled his crawl space.

“I was pumping it out with a sump pump,” Baines said.

Businesses also had to deal with the flood.

“We had to put the sandbags on the back door,” said Lee Isley, the owner of the Cramerton Drug Company.

The mayor said the river is still too high and that water from rain upstream could make it worse.

“I’m pretty worried about what will come through and what that will do on top of the high water that we have now,” Cramerton Mayor Nelson Willis said.

The area got more rain on Friday.

In Iron Station, residents were isolated by a washed-out road.

A swollen creek took out Aminty Lane and left Joey Kiker and 25 other families with no way to drive out.

“When I come home from work every day, I got to hike my groceries up to my house,” Kiker said. “I got to hike back out in the morning. That ain’t right.”

They called a county commissioner and the state senator.

“I wanted to come lay eyes on it,” Alexander said. “I wanted to see exactly what the situation was.”

It’s a private road, so the state can’t help with the part over the creek until people bring the entire road up to state standards.

“You got to start at the top of the road and finish at the bottom,” said Bud Cesena, county commissioner.

That could take years and cost residents over $1 million.

Alexander said he is looking at ways of getting help to residents quickly through area charities.

However, there are no quick solutions to the problem.

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