Tropical Storm Debby leaves large amounts of rain in Bladenboro

BLADENBORO, NC (WWAY) — Tropical Storm Debby left several places in Bladenboro with large amounts of rain, but one place that was hit the hardest was downtown on Main Street.

Water infiltrated several businesses and the road was eventually closed due to the flooding. Local business owners Rebecca and Mark Hester are no strangers to the flooding, despite the town making improvements to the drainage system.

“I think everybody thinks it’s drained a lot better since then, but I heard one of them (local official) talking this morning and basically said you know, we’ve done all we can do with the drainage, as far as they know. It’s just when the swamp where it drains to fills up, it’s just its going to fill up here,” Mark Hester said.

As the day progressed, the flooding began to subside in certain areas. Bladenboro Commissioner Terry Nance said much of the impact was felt late Wednesday night and into the early morning hours.

“In a matter of 20 minutes, we had water a foot deep in the road and it progressively got worse. We were here till a little after 3am just helping businesses salvage what they had.”

Bladenboro business owner Cara Beth Smith hopes there continues to be improvements, so Bladenboro businesses can avoid situations like this in the future. Her business is in a new shopping center that is raised a few feet about Main Street.

“We’re safe from the flood water here, the furthest it got to these new buildings was I mean way over there. So, if we could do something like this for everybody, that would be so ideal.”