Shallotte neighborhood faces backyards, streets flooding

SHALLOTTE, NC (WWAY)– Some Shallotte homeowners are facing serious flooding issues.

After several rainy days last week and even from storms months before that, water still fills the streets, and several backyards in Rourk Woods.

Tom and Judy Milostan say they moved to Shallotte to avoid ocean front properties.

“I mean when we moved down here from Illinois, we did not want to be by the ocean, because we didn’t want to be flooded,” Tom Milostan said.

Two years later, their back yard is flooded. They say it comes from a pond that the developers initially told them would not cause flooding.

“They said we didn’t really have a problem, because the pond in the back was basically dried up,” Judy Milstan said. “We were okay with that, but since we moved in every year it’s gotten fuller and fuller.”

The pond is bringing more than just water.

“It’s supposed to dry up, I was told, in like 48 hours and ours doesn’t dry up for weeks and so in the summer time there are a lot of mosquitoes,” Tom said. It brings snakes and all kinds of other critters.”

Tom says it also hurts their property’s value.

“I mean if you were here, would you buy this house if it were for sale?” Tom asked.

It’s not just their house. Several other houses and the streets are flooded too. Tom says there is a culvert in the neighborhood to collect the water, but he’s says it is too high.

“The exit culvert is about three to four feet higher than the pond and you know water does not run up hill, so there is no where for the water to go.”

The Milostans say many of the homeowners are trying to work with the developers and the town to figure out what to do, because what they don’t want to do is move.

“It’s a nice area, if we can just get rid of the water,” Tom said.

The developers and the home owner’s association have not returned our phone calls, but the town’s manager says the developer has an engineer evaluating the area.