When it rains in Locks Creek, there’s just nowhere for the water to go.
That was a common refrain repeated by both city engineers and frustrated residents at a community meeting Tuesday evening in Cedar Creek, which is located on the southeast edge of Fayetteville, just east of the Cape Fear River. Around 30 residents gathered to hear a presentation from city staff about stormwater infrastructure improvements in the Locks Creek and Cedar Creek neighborhoods, which have repeatedly flooded during storm surges, heavy rain events and hurricanes in recent years.
Staff from the city’s Public Services Department said the infrastructure improvements, initially approved by the Fayetteville City Council in summer of 2022, will protect against roadway flooding on Locks Creek Road, one of two access points in and out of the Locks Creek neighborhood. The project involves converting the existing culvert on NC-53 from a round pipe to a concrete box culvert, as well as raising Locks Creek Road by between 1.5 to 2 feet. It will mitigate flooding on Locks Creek Road for up to a 50-year storm event, but it won’t do anything to stop flooding in and around the homes, staff said.
“We can resolve the flooding going into the neighborhood by upsizing the culvert and raising the road,” Stormwater Manager Bryan Reeves said. “So we can benefit the community by allowing ingress and egress into the community during these sorts of events. We cannot resolve the flooding from Locks Creek on the structures.”
Reeves acknowledged the improvements will also not be able to stop flooding in cases of 500-year storm events, like Hurricane Matthew.
“So you have limited ability to remove stormwater runoff during large events,” Reeves said. “There’s just nowhere for it to go. You have a large area and it’s flat.”
The project will cost $8.8 million. Reeves said engineers had looked at eight distinct solutions to solve the problem and completed construction drawings for the chosen project last month. He expects to advertise the project for construction this spring, with the goal of completing it by summer of 2026.
Residents are critical
Residents were less than thrilled to hear that the city couldn’t do anything to prevent the continuous flooding in and around their homes. Throughout the discussion period of the meeting, they shared anecdotes about the issues the regular flooding has caused them and criticized the solutions presented by staff. Many residents reported having been stranded in their homes during storms, saying that even on rainy days, the water is up to their knees.
Michael Harrison, who lives in Locks Creek, criticized staff for not coming up with a solution that could prevent people from losing everything when it floods.
“We got people over there with worms, all kinds of little snakes and stuff in the house every time it floods,” Harrison said. “You wouldn’t want it. So what makes you think we want it?”
Cedar Creek resident Craig Wheeler, who said he had an engineering background, emphasized how difficult it is for the city to install infrastructure that effectively prevents flooding when the water table is so high and excess water has nowhere to go.
“When the Cape Fear River comes up during flood times or a big rain or anything like that, Locks Creek just runs right straight into that flood, which means the water’s going nowhere,” Wheeler said. “It’s like a big water wall and the Locks Creek just hits it and backs up. If you put a big pond or dig the ditch out bigger or anything like that, basically it’s already going to be full before the storm ever hits.”
Residents also raised ongoing concerns they have about continued development in the area. Some expressed frustration over Mayor Mitch Colvin’s proposed apartment complex in the area and other commercial developments taking up valuable permeable space in the area.
“It’s common sense that it’s going to make the problem worse,” Wheeler said. “Why are we allowing it?”
Staff respond
There are no regulations on how high a structure can be or what can be built there since the area is not in a 100-year floodplain as defined by FEMA, city staff said. The Public Services Department is attempting to get FEMA to designate the Locks Creek area as a 100-year floodplain, which the department’s models indicate it should be in.
“If we get FEMA to accept this, we’ll have to go through what’s called a letter of map revision,” said Gordon Rose, an engineer on the project. “And if we do that, then to your point, building would be restricted within that area. But there’s legally no way they can really stop it right now because there’s no restriction on it.”
To residents’ frustrations, Rose said: “I can’t fix what FEMA didn’t do 20 years ago.”
Some residents suggested the city install larger pipes underground, but staff said the solution would not work given the sheer amount of water from the river that already keeps the pipes full. Sheila Thomas-Ambat, director of the Public Services Department, emphasized that the area is in a natural floodplain, so there’s only so much infrastructure can do to keep the water down.
“The pipe as it stands today has water in it that’s almost full,” Thomas-Ambat. “So no matter how big a pipe I put in, it’s like putting a pipe in the ocean. That pipe is going to continue to be full. You can’t hold back the water. You can’t hold back water where Mother Nature wants to go.”
Several residents voiced concerns that the flooding had not been a problem when they first moved to Locks Creek in the 1990s and 2000s. In response, Thomas-Ambat said the issues, while not made better by development in the area, are also linked to climate change, which is making things worse.
“As we see climate change in action, how our topography was, how our neighborhoods looked in the ‘70s and ‘80s, ‘90s and even in the early 2010s, is so different than what it is today,” Thomas-Ambat said. “Today we’re seeing a lot of flash storms, a lot of flash events. And so the comment that we hear that this is not what it looked like even 10 years ago, that we’re hearing from several communities in Fayetteville, that doesn’t have one particular source of impact, source of concern, as much as it’s a general climate change.”
Wheeler urged his fellow residents not to lash out at the public services staff, but rather direct their frustrations at the city council.
“But I think we need to understand that they’re up against the wall here trying to figure out a solution,” Wheeler said. “And so we need to make sure that we’re not showing our hostility and our frustration to this [staff] council because they’re actually on our side. They’re doing the studies and they’re trying to help us. But what we need to do is be more aggressive and more passionate towards the city council to see where our community is.”
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608. This story was made possible by donations from readers like you to CityView News Fund, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization committed to an informed democracy in Fayetteville and Cumberland County.
