07-17-08: Storms highlight Wrightsville runoff woes

(c) 2008 Lumina News

By Keith T. Barber, Staff Writer

WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH -- Nearly 2.5 inches of rain fell on Wrightsville Beach in a single hour during a severe thunderstorm which swept through the area last Thursday afternoon, flooding roads and leaving Wrightsville Beach residents without power for nearly an hour.

Lightning strikes caused power outages across the  board and damaged at least one home on Live Oak Drive, said Wrightsville Beach fire captain Sterling Powell. Powell commended the residents of the Live Oak home for taking preventative measures to help avoid a potential disaster.

“The guys on Live Oak did everything right—smoke detectors went off and alerted the occupants of the house. They got out and contacted 911, which is also the right thing to do. That might have helped prevent any further damage,” he said.

Flooding was reported on a number of streets, including Waynick Boulevard, Sunset Avenue, Channel Avenue, South Lumina Avenue, East Asheville, Shearwater and Henderson streets, and many of the town’s storm drains were overwhelmed, said assistant public works director Tom Ames.

Stormwater manager Steve Dellies said flooding due to storm drains backing up is closely linked to the town’s biggest stormwater issue—its lack of elevation.

“The key thing when it comes to flooding, a number of the storm drains, especially at high tide are underwater, and it becomes impossible for anything to flow out,” Dellies said.

During a neighborhood stormwater meeting at town hall Tuesday, Dellies pointed out the town’s average elevation above sea level is between five and six feet. Last Thursday, the rain began falling just after high tide, when the Banks Channel rose 3.7 feet above sea level.

Last Thursday, town residents began losing power around 4 p.m., which caused automatic generators at town hall and public works to kick on, said public works director Mike Vukelich. Progress Energy restored power approximately 45 minutes later. Meanwhile, the town’s public works crews sprung into action— transporting portable generators to lift stations to restore power and cleaning out storm drains around town.

Dellies said landscaping materials, such as pine straw, mulch and pine bark clogged stormwater grates to a degree, but the timing of the storm had more to do with flooding conditions.

“As far as the infrastructure, the pipes were all clean,” he said. “What most residents experienced was quite a bit of flooding but it probably cleared up pretty rapidly, when the tide went down enough where the drains could actually function.”